










* 



« 










■ 

fHE BLUE RIBBON 


& XoucL 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 


; ‘ST. OLAVE’S,” “JEAN IE’S QUIET LIFE,” “ META’S FAITH,” &c. 

Vv V UAJ-TtfA/ J 

O ■ 

\'. v ' 

( * She enjoys true peace for evermore, 

As veather-beaten ship arrived on happy shore.’* 



HARPER & 


NEW YORK: 

BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 


FRANKLIN SQUARE. 


BY THE AUTHOR OF “ST. OLAVE’S.” 


ST. OLAVE'S. A Novel. 8 vo, Paper, 75 cents. 

This charming novel is the work of one who possesses a great talent for writing, as well as some experience 
and knowledge of the world. “ St. Olave’s ” is the work of an artist. The whole book is worth reading, and 
the finale is brought about in a happy and unexpected manner .—Athenaeum, London. 


JEAHIE' S QTJIET LIFE, A Novel. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 

This book is written in a very graceful manner, occasionally eloquent and pathetic. The book has a 
vitality which distinguishes the productions of but few Of our contemporary novelists. The author 1 as 
shown a real creative power, and has given us some perfectly new and original characters .— Saturday Review. 
London. 


META'S FAITH. A Novel. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 

The perusal of “Meta's Faith has afforded us a few hours of wholesome pleasure 
interest by the naturalness and force of its delineations of character.— Athenceum, L 

THE BLUE BIBB OH. A Novel. Svo, Paper, 50 cent.,. 

An unquestionably interesting story. We like “ The Blue Ribbon ” very much.— Sjicciator, Londc n. 

An admirable story. The character of the heroine is original and skillfully worked out, aud an interest is 
cast round her which never flags. The sketches of society in a cathedral city are very vivid and amusing.— 
Morning Post, London. 


PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 


Harper & Brothers will send any of the above ivories by mail, postage prepaid, to any 
part of the United States , on receipt of the price. 


I 


1 

v> 

I The Blue Ribbon. /<? 


CHAPTER I. 

A NY one going along the High Street of 
Cruxborough one sunshiny summer morn- 
ing five-and-thirty years ago, and looking up 
to the second-floor windows of Mr. Ballinger’s 
office, might have seen that gentleman reading 
a note, in which he was invited to walk over 
some fine afternoon and take a glass of wine 
with his friend and client, Hiram Armstrong, 
of Wastewood. 

Mr. Ballinger knew well enough what that 
r,c wine meant. Business ; neither more 

1 Hiram, who for 
: :: ■ . 1 • l .. i g house to 

. tost likely 

'Ll : t fat ; 1 i • ■ - >-.te building 

. - un a shuf- 
fling ;■ ■ - o - i • r in: ears with his 

.. mg were carry- 
:■ ’ 1- , ■ : an easy trot to his 

em\ ■ > — >t might be the settlement of his affairs 
that v 3 upon his mind, the due and righteous 
disposition of that snug fortune of thirty or for- 
ty - 1 >usand pounds, whose ownership made 
, as times went then, one of the most 
suu^ntial men in Cruxborough. At any rate, 
the turning of a penny was involved, and, as 
penny turning was an occupation after Mr. 
Ballinger’s own heart, he lost no time in accept- 
ing the invitation. 

Hiram Armstrong was a bachelor of sixty- 
five, or thereabouts. He had the reputation of 
being a coarse, easy, somewhat free-living man, 
whose manners had not improved Avith the im- 
provement in his circumstances. In his early 
days he had been a cattle dealer, and his talk 
was generally of the earth, earthy. But still 
there was a stratum of good-will under the old 
man’s coarseness; and after a good dinner, a 
good bottle of wine, and a pipe or two of good 
tobacco, Hiram "would have promised any thing 
in the world to his friends, and then next morn- 
ing have forgotten all about it. 

Wastewood was an ill-kept, uncomfortable- 
looking house, about half a mile out of Crux- 
borough, on the Willowmarsh Road. General- 
ly, when Mr. Ballinger had gone there, he had 
been admitted by an elderly widow — a dapper, 
obsequious little -woman, who courtesied to him 
with the reverence due to one of the city’s most 
respectable men. But, on the occasion of his 


first visit after receiving Mr. Armstrong’s note, 
the door was opened by a stranger — a curious 
foreign -looking woman, oddly dressed, darh 
complexioned, defiant, who, after glancing keen- 
ly at him, ushered him, with very scant shov 
of respect, into the dining-room, where her 
master, enveloped in a genial cloud of tobacco 
smoke, sat in his arm-chair, behind the decant 
er of old port which formed the ostensible ob 
ject of the invitation. 

“Glad to see you, Ballinger — glad to seo 
you. Thought this would bring you out pret 
ty soon,” said the old gentleman, winking ai 
his glass as he held it up to the light. “Yot 
won’t do it comfortably, now, will you, and join 
me with a pipe ? I always sa} r , you know, tha 
poi;t and pipes go together as naturally as bean 
and bacon.” 

“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Ballinger, bow 
ing, and rubbing his hands ; “ smoking is a lux 
ury in which I never indulge.” 

And indeed one might have told that by th 
look of him. Nathan Ballinger was not a ma 
Avho indulged in any thing, save that afore 
mentioned penny turning which was the chic 
purpose of his life. But he accepted Mr. Arm- 
strong’s offer of a glass of port; and then — for 
he was far too cautious a man to hurry the busi 
ness, whatever it might be, for which he wa ■ 
summoned — he directed the conversation int 
an indifferent channel, wisely judging that it 
would work its own way by-and-by to sonu 
thing more interesting. 

“You have made a change in your domesti i 
arrangements,” he began, having a somewhr 
galling impression that he had not been admi 
ted with the respect due unto him ; “ and, if I 
might venture to express an opinion, Mr. Arrr 
strong, if I might venture to express an opir - 
ion, I should add, a change which most of ^ 
your friends will scarcely consider an improve- 
ment.” 

“Change!” and old Hiram blinked through 
the cloud of tobacco smoke which envelope 1 
him. “ Oh yes, of course. Patch opened the 
door to you. I’ve had her about the place 
good while ; but she never came to the froi 
until a week or two ago, when old Betsy, th 
widow, you remember, dropped off. She’s a 
queer sort, is Patch, rather touched in the u] 
per story, I fancy, but a decent woman, a 
faithful as a dog, and as honest as the day. x 


8 


THE BLUE KIBBON. 


\ 


never happened to tell you, did I, how I picked 
her up, poor body?” 

“You did not, sir; and really, now that I 
have seen her, I must confess to a certain 
amount of curiosity upon the subject. In fact, 
her manners and deportment — ” 

“Oh, never mind her manners and deport- 
ment! Patch never pretends any thing she 
doesn’t feel; but she’s as sound as a drum, for 
all that. It was in this way : About two years 
back, as near as I can recollect, I was set here, 
with my pipe and my glass, and I just happen- 
ed to look out, and there she was, out in the 
road opposite, up to her ankles in mud and 
snow, singing ‘My lodging is on the cold 
ground.’ Now you know I’m not a bad- 
hearted man, Ballinger — not at all a bad- 
hearted man.” 

“On the contrary, my dear sir, quite the re- 
verse;” and Ballinger bowed. 

“No; and I used to sing that song myself 
when I was a boy, and it sort of touched me 
up, because I don’t like to forget old times ; so 
I tapped at the window for her to come across, 
and I declare, when I set eyes upon her near 
hand, she looked that starved and hungry I 
couldn’t .for shame send her away without a 
bite of something to eat.” 

“Very kind of you, sir — exceedingly kind — 
but quite what a gentleman of your well-known 
liberality — ” 

“ Yes, yes ; and so I took her into the kitch- 
en to Betsy, and set her down to a basin of 
hot broth ; and while she fastened upon it — 
which she did pretty sharp, I can tell you — I 
found out who she was, and where she came 
from — Naples, I think, it was, or somewhere 
that way — and she’d been in the musical line, 
and lost her vpice and her luck, poor thing, 
too, and seemed to have had rather a rough car- 
rying-on of it, one way and another. I cross- 
questioned her pretty closely, I can tell you — 
or I’m not a man that’s easy took in, Ballinger 
— and, when I’d satisfied myself that it was all 
air and above-board, I told her, if Betsy had 
10 objections, she might stop and have a night’s 
odging in the void loft. Not what every body 
vould have done, was it ?” 

“Not at all, sir. In fact, I think I may be 
lermitted to say that, considering the peculiar 
lciture of the circumstances, and the entire ab- 
ence of any familiarity on your part with the 
irevious character and habits of the party in 
luestion, it might, upon the whole — ” 

“Yes, yes, just so,” said old Hiram, impa- 
ient of Mr. Ballinger’s long paragraphs ; “ but 
t turned out all right. I’ve never had any call 
o repent it. Next morning she made, herself 
o handy about the place, while Betsy said she 
didn’t see but what we might let her stop an- 
ther day ; and that got to another, and anoth- 
r, and she fell into the work, and behaved her- 
• elf so well that the end was, she stopped on 
rith us regular ; and when poor Betsy fell ill, 

■ month ago, Batch nursed her night and day 
o her death ; and since then she’s stopped and 


done for me altogether, and I don’t know as I 
could better myself.” 

“Most remarkable, sir — quite a little ro- 
mance, and one which, so far, has eventuated 
much more successfully than might have been 
expected from the woman’s ungainly appear- 
ance.” 

“ Oh, hang appearances ! I never care any 
thing about them. She’s a good sort, is Patch 
— a very good sort. I haven’t a word against 
her, except when there happens to be any thing 
going on in the music line, and then I’m bless- 
ed if I know what to make of her. Why, at 
the last festival here, she was like a mad crea- 
ture, shooting off to Cruxborough all times of 
the day, and prowling about round the hotels 
where the singers were staying, and never any 
certainty when you’d have your dinner, or 
whether you’d ever get it at all. But I don’t 
mind her being a bit flighty now and then, if 
she goes on all right between whiles. What 
can you expect from foreigners, you know ?” 

“That depends. In my opinion, it is best 
to keep them at a judicious distance. And 
may I ask, with regard to her name, how she 
came to be provided with so singular an appel- 
lation ?” 

“Why, as to her name, she gets just what a 
woman can claim thi ouaes to 
doesn’t it, Ballingei 
ling at his own joke. “Just 
said it over to me a dozen time? bef me I coaid 
make either 1 tad ot of it, an i di <-a. 
she wrote it out on a pie *r — Pacehdi, 

or something like that, as near as I can ren 
her. Of course 1 wasn’t going to put up with, 
any such • : nglciacu >•. • pr n .. 

I hate a name that sticks to your teeth like 
badly boiled toffee ; give me something that 
comes out short and sharp, and you’ve done 
with it. So I told her, if she liked to be. plain 
Patch, she might; and Patch she was, and 
Patch she is, and Patch she will be to the end 
of the chapter — and that’s about all. And now, 
Ballinger, there’s a little matter I want to talk 
over with you.. Help yourself to another glass 
first. There’s plenty more where that came 
from.” 

Mr. Ballinger’s face assumed a blandly cau- 
tious expression. He rubbed his hands, bowed 
complacently, and leaned toward his host, with 
a smile of intense benevolence. 

“My services are entirely at your command. 
In fact, my dear sir, I may say that any thing 
in the world I can do for you — ” 

“ Thank you — thank you. I suppose I may 
call it a little matter of business ; and I don’t 
suppose any one will see me through it better 
than you will. It’s those Monkestons, Bal- 
linger, down at the Willowmarshes, you know. 
I’ve been turning it over in my own mind a 
good bit past ; I would like to give them some- 
thing of a lift.” 

“Exactly so, sir. A case of wasted oppor- 
tunities — very -wasted opportunities.” 

“I dare say— likely enough. We’ve all of 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


t .• i ' ny opportunities, one way 

or no • ■ ' • te ; but that’s neither here 

1 lion it les to a matter of business. 

i r e’s a kind of connection in 

;1 ili’.nilv Old ndrew Monkeston’s cousin 

i u:<i ■ -1 her of one of my aunts — at 

least, if : e b id marry him, he made her an 
offer. I can’t ore if it ever came to a wed- 
ding. But it’s a connection, anyway, and I 
like to remember old times, Ballinger — I like 
to remember old times.” 

“Precisely, sir, and your intentions are most 
creditable ; in fact, I may be permitted to say, 
highly commendable, the connection between 
the two families being, as I may express it, so 
exceedingly hieroglyphic.” 

After Mr. Ballinger had got the word out, 
he rather thought it ought to have been “ apoc- 
ryphal;” but Mr. Armstrong seemed to accept 
it as equally applicable, and went cheerfully on. 

“Yes, old times hadn’t ought to be forgot- 
ten. Ralph Monkeston’s father and me used 
to be very good friends. I don’t mind telling 
it to you, Ballinger, for you’re not a man that 
talks ; but, if it hadn’t been for the old farmer 
giving me a shove when I was at the bottom of 
the ladder, I might have been there now, Bal- 
linger — there now” 

“Indeed, si ! You don ally say so !” re- 
plied that wort hy gentleman, with as gracious 
an n;i «.>t surprise as if he . ■ I, at least a 

fact of Mr. 

! ;hy old farm- 
er of Willowmarshes. 

M know Marti- 
. fcy years ago 

that bank was beginning to pay its way tidily, 
and old Stives, the cattle dealer, that I’d done 
a good turn for, gave me the chance of buying 
a dozen shares without premium. You know 
he’d a deal to do with the banks, had Stives — 
director, and all that sort of thing ; and I talk- 
ed to Andrew Monkeston about it, and he said 
it wasn’t a chance to be let go, and, as I hadn’t 
the cash to turn to, he down with it there and 
then, and no. word of interest, only I was to pay 
it back at my own convenience. I don’t think 
the fag-end of it ever did get paid off at all, for 
it was uphill work with me then, and I wanted 
my ready money for the cattle dealing, and I’m 
pretty sure old Monkeston let me off the last 
fifty or so. But that was the beginning of my 
luck, Ballinger — the beginning of my luck. 
Little makes much, you know, and much makes 
more, and the bank kept getting on, and all 
that I could lay by I put into it in shares ; and 
I’m not such a fool as to go and talk about it 
to any one, but the original share-holders in that 
bank get their five-and-twenty per cent, now.” 

“A most wonderfully satisfactory invest- 
ment,” said Mr. Ballinger, with a solemnity 
worthy of the subject. 

“Ay, you’re right there. And I’ve been 
thinking it wouldn’t be a bad way of clear- 
ing off old scores if I did something now for 
poor Ralph. He’s about got to the end of his i 


tether, I fancy ; and, when a fellow’s at t 
length, strangling pretty often comes next i 
somebody don’t give him a pull the other w ’ 
Only, you see, Ballinger, Ralph’s a man t 
brings his ninepence to nothing, as sure as e 
he lays his hands on it, and if I gave him a g< 
round lumping sum to-day, it would be in h i 
the public-houses in Cruxborough to-morro > 

“Most likelv, sir, most likelv. A lamer ta- 
ble fact.” 

“Yes. I might get over that, may be, i 
giving it to his wife instead ; but Mrs. Monk 
ton’s a woman I never could abide, and tha 
the plain English of it. She’s overmuch gv 
to speaking her mind, and a man like me dc - 
get on with that sort of thing, Ballinger. W 
she came to me once, not long after Monkes / 
began to go to the dogs, and she told me to m 
face that I’d made her husband love his glass, 
by asking him night after night to the ‘ Crown 
and Cushion,’ and drinking with him there ! 
nice thing that, don’t you call it, to fling in a 
man’s face ?” 

“Most unjustifiable, my dear sir, but j 
like the woman,” said Mr. Ballinger, bow r 
again. 

“ I don’t deny either but that there may be 
a bit of truth in it. Ralph’s a jolly fellow, a 
I’d rather treat him to a glass than drink hall: 
a dozen by myself ; but a man don’t like to h> 
himself abused, reason or no reason, and wl 
he’s always stood the reckoning, too, and n. 
be a night’s lodging into the bargain, forRal 
often came out that shaky he’d have been in 
the dike fifty times over if I’d have let him . 
back to Willowmarshes on his black mare, a 
the road that dark you couldn’t scarce see yc 
hand before your face. But I never got a 
thanks from Mrs. Monkeston for it — no, not i 
I’d kept him from breaking his neck either, 
I’ve done many a time, when the mare’s be m 
skittish, and his temper up with liquor, as 
used to say to him, ‘ Ralph,’ I used to say, ‘yo> 
stop with me, and we’ll have another glass o 
two comfortable, and I’ll give you a nigh ' 
lodging, and you’ll sleep it off by morning 
and then she coming to me, and saying h( 
she’d sat up o’ nights waiting for him. We 
and hadn’t she better sit up o’ nights waiting f 
him than have him brought home with his ne i 
broke? — fill your glass again, Ballinger — a b 
he there with the farm going to rack and ru 
on his hands, as every one says you can scarce 
keep a pig upon it now, the land’s that go od 
for nothing. No, Mrs. Monkeston’s a worn; i 
I can’t abide, and she sha’n’t have the fingering 
of my money while I can help it.” 

And Hiram took a long, deep draught of the 
old port, and puffed away for a few minutes i 
mute indignation. Mr. Ballinger, filling 1 i •> 
glass, replied blandly, 

“I agree with you, sir, Mrs. Monkeston is a 
woman who has always roused my antagonisr 
Indeed, I think I may be permitted to say th 
I seldom come into contact with her witho 
being deprived of my temper.” 


10 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


“I don’t care what you’re deprived of, she 
sha’n’t deprive me of a penny of my money. 
I’ve got my purse in my pocket, and I’ll keep it 
there. But I’m willing to do poor Ralph a 
turn, for all that, and that’s why I’ve sent for 
you. There’s ten shares in Martinet’s Bank — 
an odd lot as I bought a year or two back, 
when old Stives died. Now, I’m wanting to 
have them shares transferred to you, and you’ll 
give me an agreement, signed, and all proper, 
to pay over the interest of ’em once a quarter 
or so to Ralph, as you see it’ll help him on. 
He was talking to me a bit since about the lit- 
tle lad, as he would want putting to boarding- 
school afore long ; and then there’d be binding 
him to something, and them shares would about 
do it comfortable. It’s a fair thing, Ballinger 
— naught but right. I’ve thought many a time 
— not as Mrs. Monkeston put me up to it, for 
I’d never let a woman go meddling with me — 
but I’ve thought may be Ralph might have been 
a steadier man if he’d never set eyes on me, 
and that isn’t a nice thing for a man to feel ; 
and I can’t say but what it>’s laid awkward upon 
me sometimes, when I’ve been set quiet.” 

“ My dear sir, there is not the slightest need 
for you to trouble yourself,” and Mr. Ballinger 
put the whole responsibility easily away with a 
wave of his hand. Though poor Ralph Monk- 
eston was distantly connected with himself, and 
though he had a sort of family interest in his 
decent behavior, still it was better to keep mat- 
ters quiet. Let the old man do as he liked 
about the shares, but it was no use disturbing 
lie pleasant relations between them by allow- 
ng that any thing had been done which could 
call for reprobation or even mild reproof. “I 
issure you, if a man has the disposition to go 
wrong, he will do it, quite apart from any temp- 
ations which may be presented to him in an 
external direction. I believe I am justified in 
aving that there is not the slightest need for you 
o criminate yourself on the present occasion.” 

“ To what ?” said old Armstrong, rubbing his 
yes, for the old port and the tobacco smoke 
ogether had somewhat dimmed them. “I 
an’t get on with your fine words; but if you 
aean I don’t need to bother about it more than 
.-hat the money can cure, it’s all right. And 
et you know, Ballinger, I’ve had many a glass 
nth him — ay, many and many a one, when, if 
; hadn’t been for me, he’d have been set at his 
wn fireside, may be. However, that’s neither 
ere nor there. It’ll be a stone in the other 
ocket if the little lad gets his schooling, and is 
ut apprentice and that; and as for his sister, 
oor wench ! why, no schooling can do her much 
ood. I reckon she’ll have to foot it pretty 
)ugh to the end of the chapter, unless they can 
tanage to put by a little for her, which doesn’t 
jem very likely as things are going now. You’ll 
3e after them shares, then, Ballinger?” 

“ With pleasure,” said Mr. Ballinger, rising, 
)r the old man seemed almost too far gone to 
•ansact much more business. “ The necessa- 
r arrangements shall be entered into forthwith ; 


and I will bring the a; au'y igo 1. 

After that I will take it] n myself t e 

conduct of your wishes.” 

“Ay, that’s right. T it’s what : wn ;t- t 
to be bothered about it any more, ■ V: . . 
And I don’t want folks telling of it. ’ to 
set ’em talking. It’s bet ro Bal- 

linger, between you and k .. id nob Jy else 
has got nothing to do n ill it. I never was a 
man to like other people talking about what I 
did or what I didn’t do ; and so the snugger you 
keep it the better.” 

“Your wishes shall be attended to with the 
utmost of my ability,” said Mr. Ballinger, court- 
eously. 

“Ay. And when we’ve got the agreement 
signed, I think I shall begin to trouble you 
about that little property of mine which wants 
squaring up for kingdom - come, you know. 
That nice little property, eh, Mr. Ballinger?” 

And old Mr. Armstrong chuckled. Such a 
nice little property indeed, of thirty or forty 
thousand pounds, and all in such good invest- 
ments, too. 

“ You are facetious, sir. But I shall be 
ready to wait upon you at any time. I am 
exceedingly glad that you see it advisable to 
settle your affairs. I always recommend test- 
amentary precautions, especially in the case of 
important effects. It saves irrm>en c ~ ■ ■ 
and anxiety. You may 
at any moment.” 

“Thank you. You won 
will you? It’s a good so- : . <y mv.o 

where that came from \nc . 5 

after next you’ll look i’\ 
things together, 
self, Ballinger, for 

business for rr ... your nine, anil a friend’s 
worth his price when you know lie’s there. 
There’s another odd lot of shares in that bank 
of Martinet’s as I shouldn’t mind. But I’m a 
bit sleepy to-night ; I think you’d may be best 
go, if you’re not in the mind for another glass.” 

Mr. Ballinger departed. Patch shut the 
door after him with a contemptuous click 
which spoke volumes ; she had no fancy for 
men who bowed and salaamed, and always 
said, “ Exactly so, my dear sir.” 

Mr. Hiram Armstrong had a couple more 
glasses, which made him unusually communi- 
cative. When Patch came into the room 
again he told her all about what he had been 
doing, and the arrangement which had been 
made for the benefit of Ralph Monkeston. He 
also said that he intended to remember her, 
too ; but Patch had been told that so often be- 
fore that the prospect had ceased to have any 
charms. 

o 

CHAPTER II. 

Mr. Ballinger was not ill pleased with the 
confidence reposed in him. He enjoyed being 
benevolent at other people’s expense, and he 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


II 


keenly appreciated the authority which the 
office of almoner would give him in Ralph 
Monkeston’s family. 

Perhaps the old man was right ; there might 
he an obligation on his part. When a man 
who can drink his half-dozen glasses, and stand 
steady after them, has well-nigh ruined a shift- 
less scape-grace, whose one tumbler of toddy 
has power to rouse the demon within him, and 
send him home a curse to his wife and fam- 
ily, it is only fitting that the offender should 
appease his conscience by investing a trilling 
sum for the benefit of the unfortunate children 
whose natural protector he has taken away 
from them, and whose prospects he has blast- 
ed ; and if, with a certain soft-hearted shame- 
facedness, not unnatural under the circumstan- 
ces, he dislikes to clean the path which his 
own footsteps have fouled, why, then, let him 
dip just a little deeper into his well-lined purse, 
and pay a scavenger to sweep him a road to 
heaven through the mud of his own self-in- 
dulgence. 

So the transaction was completed, the scrip 
transferred from old Hiram Armstrong’s cash- 
box to the iron safe in Mr. Ballinger’s office, 
and the agreement drawn up by which the lat- 
ter engaged to pay a certain proportion of in- 
rl y, 01 I ilf yeai'ly, as the case 
might Ralph Ivb> '.eston, of Willow- 

af of his own immediate 
n of his son. 

- - • , , l i; no; t.t signed, Mr. Ballinger 

ire evening to step down 
m Waste \> Vh tb document, on which 
■v-’r: ijr Mt, ’ was to send for a 

fitnesses to the signature ; 
and a snug rubber, with a few glasses of toddy 
after it, was to wind up the agreement. 

But before that spare evening came death 
knocked at the rich man’s door. Old Hiram 
Armstrong’s gout went to his heart, the easy 
trot of the pale horse quickened to a gallop, 
and at a moment’s notice Hiram was hurried 
away, his will unmade, his affairs unsettled, no 
disposition of his property arranged, save that 
which, as we have seen, had handed over the 
shares in Martinet’s Bank to the proprietor- 
ship of Mr. Ballinger. 

Moreover, it so chanced that within a week 
Armstrong’s decease, Ralph Monkes- 
rank, jovial, shiftless scape-grace, also 
this life — departed it, as many of his 
had prophesied he would, by falling 
A - the dike as he was riding home one dark 
n that skittish mare whose propensities 
had en given poor Hiram excuse for keep- 
- a* jolly owner to an extra glass atWaste- 

j~u, instead of letting him go to his waiting, 
anxious-eyed wife at the Willowmarslies. 

And now whose should those shares be, 
which, without cost or payment of his, were ly- 
ing so safe in Nathan Ballinger’s strong-box ? 

Give them to the widow and children, said 
Conscience, that great solemn voice which, heed- 
ed or not, does always speak above the chatter- 


ing babble of self-interest and policy. But Na- 
than Ballinger paused. It was not well to do 
any thing in a hurry, he said to himself, as he 
looked over the scrip and the little scrap of pa- 
per — the sole, mute record of his obligations to 
the dead and the living — which kept him from 
its honest possession. 

Then, passing the paper slowly through his 
irresolute fingers, he took counsel with himself. 
Old Armstrong disliked Mrs. Monkeston ; made 
no secret of his dislike ; had said she should 
never have the handling of his money. Anv 
claim of hers, then, to it might safely be set 
aside— nay, more than safely— that was not the 
word, it might justly be set aside. Nay, again, 
Mr. Ballinger might say that in strict justice 
Mrs. Monkeston ought not to have the money. 

If, then, Ralph Monkeston were ignorant of 
the transaction — and most likely he was, bui 
that must be found out — what need was then 
that he, Nathan Ballinger, should say anything 
more about that slip of paper, or the obligatior: 
to which it bound him? 

Mrs. Monkeston was a stern, independent 
self-reliant woman, intolerant of help and an 
thority. She would almost rather be withon 
money than receive it through his hands 
Would it not, then, really, after all, be better 
more to the interest of the children, and there 
fore more according to the wish of his respect 
ed client, Mr. Armstrong, if, instead of payin 
down the money by these humiliating install 
ments — and Mrs. Monkeston was a woma 
whose whole soul would rebel against “ install- 
ments ” — he were to destroy the agreemcni 
keep the shares in his own possession, and, a 
a compensation for them, give the widow whai- 
professional advice she needed in her preser 
extremity, look after placing the little girl in a.: 
orphanage, and, in the course of a year or twc 
take the boy into his own office, and so giv 
him a fair start in life? 

Really, when Mr. Ballinger came to thin 
the matter over, that seemed to be the best Ava 
of settling it. Why, the mere fact of takin 
the boy into his office Avithout premium, or r 
the most a trifling consideration of a feAV pound 
Avhich Mrs. Monkeston could easily raise on tl 
farm, Avould more than Avipe off’ the sum Avhie 
he Avas appropriating ; and then there avou! 
be the professional services, and the advice, an 
all the rest of it, as a free gift to the Avidov 
Mr. Ballinger thought, on the Avhole, he Avas rati 
er a generous man than othenvise. And the 
there Avas this to be said — that, in any case, M 
Ballinger Avould have been expected to c 
something for the family. Being trustee u) 
der old AndrcAv Monkeston’s will, and connec 
ed with him by a relationship much less apo 
ryphal than that Avhich partly instigated Hira 
Armstrong’s act of reparation, his Avife beii 
niece to AndreAV, and therefore cousin to Ralph 
people Avould naturally look to him to stand 1 
the family, and help to keep Mrs. Monkeston 
on her feet in some respectable Avav, until s' 
Avas able to turn round for herself. Therefor *, 


12 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


since, under any circumstances, he must do 
something, how much better it was that he 
should be able to pay himself for that some- 
thing, whatever it might be, out of this definite, 
tangible sum of money, which seemed to have 
come into his hands for the very purpose ! He 
would thus be saved from loss — for really, when 
he came to think about it, a professional man’s 
time was his money, and Ralph’s affairs would 
take a deal of winding up — he would be able 
to give much more time to Mrs. Monkeston’s 
relief than he could possibly have afforded if 
the services had been purely gratuitous, and he 
would preserve his reputation as a thoroughly 
benevolent, painstaking, reliable friend of the 
family, a true succorer of the widow and or- 
phan — a man who, under any circumstances, 
was ready to do his duty by coming generously 
to the help of those whom a mysteriously dis- 
posing Providence had placed in a position to 
need his bounty. 

Mr. Ballinger, however, would not burn that 
agreement until he knew for certain that it had 
never been mentioned except between himself 
and Hiram Armstrong; so he put it back into 
ais strong-box, and went over, meanwhile, to 
.lie Willowmarshes, to consult with Mrs. Monk- 
eston about the arrangements for Ralph’s fu- 
neral. 


CHAPTER III. 

The funeral was over, so, also, was the solemn 
conclave of eating wherewith English people, 
for the most part, signalize the burial of their 
lead ; and now Mr. Balmain, Ralph Monkes- 
ton’s doctor, and Mr. Ballinger, were driving 
home in the doctor’s stylish little trap, beguil- 
(ng the time with those brisk, cheerful dashes 
Df conversation which never seem so welcome 
as when they may be indulged in by uncon- 
cerned spectators of the tedious ceremonials of 
death, 

“But, by-the-way, doctor,” said Mr. Ballin- 
ger, suddenly giving the dialogue a more prac- 
tical turn, “you don’t happen to know, I sup- 
pose, if poor Monkeston had any idea of being 
nelped out of his difficulties ? Of course you 
;ould not have come much into communication 
with him without perceiving that his affairs 
were in a somewhat embarrassed condition ; 
but possibly he may have had some hope of 
jxtricating himself by means of rich friends, 
fou know he had one or two very good friends 
n Cruxborough.” 

Mr. Balmain, a jolly, cheerful man, whose 
digestion apparently did its office upon funeral 
oaked meats as readily as upon those which 
lad the brightest of wedding blessings said 
>ver them, looked with a somewhat puzzled air 
it the lawyer. That Mr. Ballinger, who was 
.veil known to have the private affairs of Crux- 
xirough at his fingers’ ends, should need to 
nake inquiry respecting the pecuniary position 
of his own cousin, seemed rather strange. And 


besides, in a general way, Mr. Ballinger never 
asked questions about any body. But just 
now he was so intently employed in trying to 
hit with his whip a fly which had settled on 
the mare’s neck, that he did not see the look 
of surprise, and could not, therefore, be expect- 
ed to take any notice of it. 

“Not that I know of,” said the doctor. “ I 
always fought shy of money matters with poor 
Monkeston. I never knew but that he might 
come down upon me with a request for an odd 
fifty or so, if I asked any questions about that 
sort of thing. It’s rather risky, you know, be- 
ing too confidential with fellows who are so 
hard up as he generally was.” 

“Precisely,” said Mr. Ballinger, still switch- 
ing at the fly; “but yet I thought, perhaps — 
old Armstrong, you know.” • 

“ Oh yes ! old Armstrong— exactly, the rich 
old fellow who died last week. Wonder who’ll 
get all that fine property of his? No, I don’t 
fancy Monkeston had any notion of being help- 
ed out in that quarter. You see, Armstrong 
wasn’t a man to make ducks and drakes of his 
money, and that’s pretty much what it would 
have come to in Monkeston’s hands. Indeed, 
now I come to think about it, the poor fellow 
told me himself, only the last time I went over 
to smoke a cigar with him, that he didn’t know 
what would become of him- ; ,dn’t a i \q to 
stand on, either of his owi; • -n one - ; 
and he wouldn’t have said th : if he’d bad any 
idea of Armstrong coming f 
I shifted the conversation 
after that, for it was getti .. hu gen, ', s 
ground; but things had * oaie '*> an awkward! 
pass, hadn’t they, foriiim to >ny b 

Mr. Ballinger whistled cheerfully to the 
mare, and gave himself a brisk shake of gener- 
al adjustment, as if, looked at from his point of 
view, the situation was not by any means so 
awkward as it appeared to Mr. Balmain. 

“ It isn’t clear to me,” continued that gen- 
tleman, “ whether the state of his affairs hadn’t 
something to do with his being picked up out 
of that dike. Of course it wasn’t for me to say 
any thing about it at the inquest; it makes 
things so uncomfortable for the friends when a 
verdict of suicide is brought in. It had much 
better be supposed that the mare pitched him in, 
even if he happened to be the worse for drink 
at the time, than that he walked himself in, 
out of sheer desperation. But between yen 
and me, Mr. Ballinger, that’s \ I think it 
was.” 

Still Mr. Ballinger made n . and soon 
afterward the conversation i\ rmed its for: 
cheeriness. 

Meanwhile the village chi Iren 
the church-yard, looking at the 
mound there, and stooping ovei - 

touch a wreath of flowers which tiie widow iiau 
laid upon it. Little knots of people gathered 
at their doors to talk over the funeral, and oth- 
ers clustered on the village - green, whence 
could be seen, scarce a stone’s-tlirow away, the 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


13 


:> lately death-visited house. It was a low, 
Ambling, irregularly-built farmstead, standing 
from the road, having on one side an 
empty stack-yard, a wagon hovel with no wag- 
ons in it, an implement shed, containing noth- 
ing but a few bundles of fagots, and. a fold- 
yard, in which two or three vagrant pigs wan- 
dered disconsolately about; evidently not a 
place that was paying its way in the world, as 
well-to-do farmers from neighboring villages 
said, passing it on their road to Cruxborough 
market. 

Behind the house a grassy plot sloped down 
to the river Yelland, a sluggish stream, which 
scarce stirred the flag-leaves and water-weeds 
along its course, and which seemed to have 
imparted its own laziness to the shoals of min- 
now and pike which inhabited it, for they shift- 
ed themselves quietly along from shallow to 
shallow in the most leisurely manner possible, 
and made an occasional dart at a stray fly, as 
if it were not of the slightest consequence 
whether he accepted the attention or not. 
Two tall poplars, clothed down to their very 
roots with green branches, stood at the bottom 
of the garden, and between them a flight of 
steps, worn, damp, and mossy, led to the water. 
On the bottom step a matronly looking gray 
cat sat watching the fishes as they floated along 
iu°t under the surface, putting down her paw 
sn in the quite vain hope of catch? 
ii g one, and then, with comically disgusted 
m face. drawhu " back, shaking it, 
and vi her, until another 

lazy shoal beguiled her into trying again. 

Two . l a girl, sat on the 

step ab'.vt- fishing * bit of string and a 

evof . pin -fishing, too with about as much 
success as p^i-y, . vr o. that they appeared to 
gain more amusement from the performance. 
The lad, Roger Monkeston, was a handsome 
little fellow of ten or twelve, with thick, tum- 
bling locks of black hair, and a pair of honest 
blue eyes, looking forth from a healthy, sun- 
burned face. Jean, his sister, was three years 
younger, a pale, puny, under-grown child, with 
a disproportionately large head, and a tower 
of forehead, which seemed as if it would one 
day topple over and crush the wasted little fea- 
tures under it. One look into that face, with 
its strange, unnatural expression of mingled 
wisdom, quaintness, and suffering, was enough 
to tell that nature, or what men miscall chance, 
had laid upon Jean Monkeston the heavy bur- 
den of deformity ; that the sorest cross a wom- 
an can bear, that of being an object of pity in- 
stead of love, was hers to carry until the sweet 
soul within, released by death, found a more 
shapely dwelling-place. 

But such cross had in no wise pressed heavi- 
ly' upon the child as yet. She had found small 
need of pity, nor been much burdened by it ; 
her great brown eyes were lighted up with ea- 
ger interest, her little face was one pathetically 
ugly smile, as, with her new black frock care- 
fully pinned up round her, and a holland pina- 


fore tied over it, she crouched by her brother’s 
side on the mossy steps, watching the minnows 
glide lazily along, and from time to time mak- 
ing a dive for them, after pussy’s fashion. 

“ I’ve caught one at last,” she said, triumph- 
antly, as a fine fat fellow steered right into the 
trap of her bony little fingers. “ Oh, how fun- 
ny he does feel !” 

“ Let me see. Oh, you stupid, you’ve let 
him go again ! What for did you do that ?” 

“ I didn’t let him go, Roger ; he went of his 
own accord, and. I couldn’t hold him very fast, 
for fear of hurting him. But I don’t want to 
fish any more now.” 

“And I don’t either,” said Roger. “You 
don’t get on fast enough. Let’s go to the wa- 
ter-fall and make a mill. I learned about it 
in my ‘ Natural Philosophy ’ last day I was at 
school, and it’s as easy as can be, if only you 
have the water. Come along.” 

While the children were amusing themselves 
and enjoying the unwonted freedom which had 
been procured for them by what might be call- 
ed the melancholy incident of the day, Gurtha, 
the maid of all work, a rough, broad-shoulder- 
ed, loud-spoken Yorkshire lass, stood behind her 
tub at the back-kitchen door, washing up the 
things that had been used at the funeral feast, 
and handing them over to Mrs. Bratchet, a 
comely-looking widow woman, who dried and 
packed them away in piles. Mrs. Bratchet be- 
longed to Cruxborough, and was by occupation 
a washer-woman, but many years ago she had 
been a servant in the Monkeston family, and 
always now, when there was a press of work, 
she came over to help at the Willowmarshes 
farm. 

“ You’ll have to make up a dozen and a half 
of them best pudding-plates, Mrs. Bratchet,” 
said Gurtha ; “ they’re best counted afore you 
put ’em back into the store-closet, and four-and- 
twenty meats, and this here that I’ve got in my 
hand makes six tureens. My, but this is a 
washing-up, and no mistake !” 

“ Yes,” replied the widow, cheerily ; “ but I 
never grudge any trouble when I’m washing 
after a funeral. Poor man ! he couldn’t lia’ 
been better done to, if he’d been the squire of 
the parish. The missis ’ll have it to think of 
to her dying day, that she did every thing for 
him as was proper. I always says bury ’em re- 
spectable, let ’em be what they may, for it’s the 
last thing you can do for ’em ; and when you’ve 
done it, there’s an end. By what I’ve heard 
tell, he wasn’t much good, though, and I’m 
afeard he hasn’t left the missis a deal to turn 
round with.” 

“ I don’t know,” and Gurtha put a fresh pile 
of plates into the tub ; “ that isn’t my lookout. 
Tilings has been shifting off' the farm this two 
year past, while there’s scarce enough left on 
it to feed a pig ; but where the missis goes, I 
mean to go, wage or no wage. I’d rather serve 
her for naught than hire out to a fresh place, 
and her doing her own work, as was never 
brought up to it.” 


14 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


“You’ll never serve one of the Lord’s serv- 
ants for naught,” said Mrs. Bratchet, senten- 
tiously; “there’s a blessing comes with it, 
more ’n silver and gold, and I’d do the same 
for Mrs. Monkeston myself — ay, that I would, 
over and over, afore I’d see her want. And 
the poor little maid yonder — bless her! it’ll 
be hard lines for her, I reckon. The world’s 
rough enough for them as has to start with a 
leg tied up, as you may say. Was it a acci- 
dent, do you know, did it ?” 

“Ay, most like,” replied Gurtha. — “And thir- 
teen plates makes four-and-twenty ; and then 
there’s the sauce-boats, all ready. I think I’ll 
get ’em off to bed first, though ; you never know 
where you are while there’s childer about among 
the work.” 

And with that, Gurtha, who evidently did 
not -wish to go further into the subject of poor 
little Jean’s affliction, went off to look for the 
children. 

“Halloo, there!” she shouted, as she caught 
sight of them dabbling about at the water-fall. 
“ Come your ways in, both of you, and have 
your supperses, and go to bed like good bairns.” 

“Go to bed!” cried Roger, disdainfully, 
climbing down the bank to scoop out another 
handful of clay for his dam. “ Go to bed ? I 
should think not ; it isn’t half-past six yet.” 

“ It’s time for the likes o’ you to clear out o’ 
my way, anyhow. It’s been going on for seven 
this long while past.” 

“ Don’t you go, Jean,” said Roger to his sis- 
ter, who was unpinning her black frock, and 
preparing to trot away, like a good little girl ; 
“ Gurty’s cheating us. I say, Gurtha — ’’ and 
he raised his voice in the direction of the stal- 
wart damsel — “you’re telling a story. The 
shadow of this big poplar there gets round to 
Stack’s mill exactly at half-past six on mid- 
summer-day, and this is midsummer-dav, and 
it isn’t nearly there yet. Going on for seven, 
indeed! It’s going on for no such thing.” 

“Did ever any one hear the likes of that 
boy?” said Gurtha to herself; “he’s alius a 
reason at his tongue end, catch him where you 
will. I could come round over many a grown 
man better nor •what I can with him. To 
think, now, that he should have tellcd me what 
o’clock by the shadder of them there trees! 
I made sure I had him fast, for I put the kitch- 
en-clock forrad on purpose.” 

“ Well, well, come your ways,” she contin- 
ued, with a perceptible diminution of authority 
in her manner, for she had been overmatched 
— “come your ways in ; it’s a throng night, and 
I want the house clear. You shall have sum- 
mut nice for vour supperses if vou come right 
off’.” 

The last appeal had the desired effect. Down 
went the handful of clay, which, if Gurtha had 
persisted in her “story,” would have been 
hurled at her; and Roger came tumbling head 
over heels to the back-kitchen door, leaving 
Jean to follow at a steadier pace. 

“ What have you got for us, Gurtha?” 


“Come your ways in, and see,” quoth the 
maid, and pointed, with a soup-ladle in her 
hand, to the half-open door of the larder. 

A goodly sight, indeed — enough to make any 
little boy hold his breath in respectful astonish- 
ment. Segments of blanc-mange hemispheres, 
defaced pyramids of sponge-cake, towers of 
translucent jelly, with their keeps and battle- 
ments overthrown, wedges of plum-pudding, 
slowly assuming the rigidity of coldness ; open 
tarts, with sugary tops ; partly excavated pies, 
revealing underneath thin toppling crusts mines 
of delicious treasure ; besides sundry small ware 
of little cakes and biscuits, which, in presence 
of the more substantial realities, seemed scarce- 
ly worth mentioning, though at any other time 
they would have been enough to justify the 
most hasty retreat from mill building and dam 
constructing. 

“What a jolly turn-out!” said the child, ap- 
parently not realizing that his father’s burial 
feast had furnished the materials of the unwont- 
ed display. “ Don’t they look good ?” he con- 
tinued to Jfean, who had come up meanwhile, 
and was peeping over his shoulder. “Which 
of it shall we have, I wonder ? I should like 
some of that white stuff, with the pink sugar 
over it. May we have some of the white stuff, 
Gurtha?” 

“White stuff’, indeed !” said Gurtha, fetching 
plates and spoons. “ It’s isinglass bolonge ; 
and a pretty bother I had to make it, too, with 
the sun broiling down. It had tQ.be yet 
pan of cold water to set, and me standing over 
it driving off the chickens all the time, so as 
they shouldn’t peck it. Only Mrs,,Bratchet 
said it was the proper thing for a funeral ; and 
I’d made up my mind that your poor pa should 
have every thing as was proper. I don’t see, 
though, but what I may as well let you have a 
bit on it.” And Gurtha, who was still feeling 
slightly humiliated about that shadow of the 
poplar, and anxious to make up for her little 
deviation from the path of strict rectitude, di- 
vided the “ bolonge ” into two portions; and 
then, by way of fully expiating her offense, 
added a shaving of clear golden-colored jelly 
to each, and told the children to go out on the 
grass-plot with it, and be quick, for she wanted 
them off to bed before she took the crockery 
away. 

But Gurtha had little knowledge of child na- 
ture if she expected Roger and Jean Monkes- 
ton to be in any hurry over the treat she had 
placed before them. As if children, with the 
faintest rose-tinge of poetic feeling about them, 
or the mildest fibre of sensibility, ever did make 
haste over such delicacies as only fall to their 
share at funerals or wedding feasts; as if the 
morsel of cake were not disintegrated, plum by 
plum, with a leisureness comparable only to 
the almost imperceptible encroachments of the 
tooth of time ; as if the biscuit were not nib- 
bled into the quaintest devices, and made to 
assume almost as many shapes as the bits of 
glass in a kaleidoscope, thus adding the loftier 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


15 


delights of imagination and design to the lower 
gratification of gastronomic tastes, and feeding 
the noble artistic faculty, even while the joys 
of actual possession translate themselves slowly 
into that of memory. The child who demolish- 
es with incontinent speed his portion of birthday 
cake or Christmas pudding, lacks all the ele- 
ments of spiritual beauty. In after-life he will 
attack with equal rapacity the subtler delica- 
cies of that period, and sweep off his manhood’s 
portion with vulgar haste — so missing all the 
sweet, long-drawn-out delight of meditation 
and analysis, and turning the grand artistic-ban- 
quet of life into a mere pot-house feast. No, 
there is to a thoughtful mind something won- 
derfully suggestive in that lingering leisureli- 
ness wherewith a child, whose tastes are of the 
nobler sort, expatiates over his little supper 
slice, looks at it, as it were, from a thousand 
points of view, and makes it yield to him a 
world of enjoyment in imagination, ere he ac- 
cepts it in its material form. 

So Roger and Jean Monkeston, squatting 
side by side on the grass-plot at the back-kitch- 
en door, accomplished the demolition of their 
“ bolonge ” by the smallest possible stages, 
and, moreover, made it minister to their ingen- 
ious fancy by cutting it into all sorts of shapes 
before allowing it to fulfill its other, and now 
quite secondary, function of satisfying their ap- 
petites. Jean cut hers into thin slices, and 
notched them with her spoon into an imitation 
•’-’• he fret- work on the west front of Cruxbor- 
ough Minster; then she made a Gothic win- 
dow, piercing out the lights with her thimble, 
and some battlements over it, and a spire sur- 
mounting all. But the plate ending about 
half-way up the spire, the remainder of the 
design had to be carried out on her pinafore, 
which produced a second declamation from 
Gurtha. 

A still more brilli'ant idea struck Roger. 
About a fortnight before, old Dr. Boniface, the 
Vicar of Willowmarshes, with whom the little 
lad was a great favorite, had taken him over 
to an astronomical lecture at Cruxborough, 
where the various phenomena of the solar sys- 
tem had been illustrated by magic -lantern 
slides. Since then the boy’s imagination had 
been full of planets, satellites, comets, nebulas, 
and the like ; and what so delightful now as to 
cut his blanc-mange into a solar system, and 
cover his plate with isinglass planets, ranged 
in proper sizes and positions, with a monstrous 
comet dashing in among them, as per diagram ; 
and the more so as the very pattern of his 
plate lent its aid to such a flight of fancy, be- 
ing a white ground, with five blue concentric 
rings upon it, answering admirably, if only 
there had been a few more of them, to the 
requirements of the primary planets. And 
Jean’s thimble, when she did not want it to 
pierce lights in her Gothic windows, was the 
very thing to shape out Mercury, Venus, the 
Earth, Mars, and the rest of the heavenly 
bodies. So Roger set to work ; and presently 


no astronomer-royal, poring over calculations 
which are to hand his name down to posterity, 
could have been more absorbed in his task 
than was the little village lad in his blanc- 
mange universe. 

But Gurtha could not stand that sort of 
thing any longer. After various little attacks 
of sharp-shooting, directed toward the uncon- 
scious children, she came down with a fierce 
cannonade upon the young astronomer, as he 
was attempting to deposit a somewhat flabby 
and unmanageable Jupiter in its proper orbit, 
and investing herself for the time with even 
more than the force of Jove’s thunder-bolts, 
she seized a dishcloth, and swept the solar 
system into dire confusion therewith. 

“A plague on your tricks, I’ll have no more 
of ’em ! Get away to bed, will you, both of 
you, and finish your supperses right off. If 
I’d known what you were going to be after, 
I’d fcpivc given you nought but a bite o’ seed- 
bread as was spared from the last baking, 
i’stead of that stuff to go messing and maul- 
ing. Side it out at once, will you ? or I’ll 
give it to the pigs, as sure as you’re alive?” 

Thus rebuked, Roger put Jupiter into his 
mouth instead of into its orbit. Saturn fol- 
lowed, and Ilerschel, and a spoonful of moons. 
Theft hastily demolishing the chaos lump out 
of which other worlds were to have been made, 
he returned the plate, now representing empty 
space, to Gurtha, and disappeared, followed by 
Jean, who had meanwhile swallowed a whole 
row of arches and a cathedral spire. 

“There, now, be off quick!” shouted Gur- 
tha; “and don’t forget to go and say good- 
night to your mother.” 

The children hurried away, glad to be out 
of the reach of Gurtha’s noisy tongue, which 
was always to be dreaded on busy days, and 
ran through the front kitchen and passage to 
a door at the other end of the house, which 
<they pushed open, and then paused for a while, 
as if surprised, before they went further. 

Their mother, a quiet, rather grave-looking 
woman, in widow’s weeds, was sitting in the 
room by a lattice window which looked out 
into the back garden. Her spinning-wheel 
was at her side ; mechanically she turned it, 
dipping her fingers from time to time into a 
saucer of water to wet the thread. But her 
face had a musing, absorbed expression, far 
enough away from the mere hand labor with 
which she was occupying herself. 

“ Come in, little ones,” she said, seeing them 
stand there irresolutely. 

They came forward, looking curiously at her, 
and then at each other. 

“ Gurtha said it was time to go to bed, and 
she gave us some blanc-mange for supper, and 
told us to corhe and say good-night to you.” 

“ Yes, you had better go. Poor Gurtha has 
had a hard day. I dar.e say she wants to have 
the house quiet. Don’t give her any more trou- 
ble than you can help.” 

“No, mother.” And Roger, who was at her 


1 G 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


side, now laid his rough, brown little hand with 
a caressing touch upon his mother’s shoulder. 
“But, mother — ” 

“ Well, what is it, Roger?” she said, still me- 
chanically' working on at her wheel. 

“ How queer you look, mother ! what a fun- 
ny cap you have got on, and your hair all out 
of sight ! I never saw you look like that be- 
fore ; it isn’t pretty. Do you have it so because 
father is dead ?” 

“Yes, my child. You will get accustomed 
to it by-and-by, for I shall never wear any oth- 
er now ; and then, perhaps, you will like it bet- 
ter.” 

“Never at all, mother?” 

“Never at all !” said Mrs. Monkeston, draw- 
ing Jean nearer to her, and arranging the folds 
of her new black-stuff dress. “And now, good- 
night. . I must be alone.” 

“ Sha’n’t we sing you our hymn first, moth- 
er?” asked Jean, glancing timidly into that 
grave, musing face. 

“Ah ! yes. I had forgotten the hymn ; sing 
it now.” 

Roger straightened himself, threw out his 
chest, and then, in a firm, clear, boyish treble, 
began to sing the Evening Hymn. He had 
a fine voice, and was the pride of the village 
choir, where he helped Dr. Boniface’s daughter 
to lead the singing. Jean put in a low con- 
tralto, which made sweet music with her broth- 
er’s more ringing tones. When they had fin- 
ished, their mother drew them to her and kiss- 
ed them. 

“Now go to bed quietly, and by-and-by I’ll 
come and hear your prayers.” 

“All right, mother,” said Roger, briskly, and 
went away, followed slowly by the little hunch- 
back Jean, on whom Mrs. Monkeston’s gaze 
now rested with a lingering wistfulness. So 
slowly, with such feeble, faltering steps, she 
must follow all through life. 

The bedrooms which the children occupied 
opened into each other, and were at the end 
of a long passage in the western gable of the 
house. No light reached this landing except 
through the door of Roger’s room, which was 
pierced in its upper panel with a round hole, 
surrounded by eight smaller ones. The low 
light of the evening sun, falling on this door, 
passed in long shafts of rays through these holes, 
and rested in as many round bright patches on 
the opposite wall. Roger came to a full stop 
when he saw it. 

“ Oh, how jolly ! I say, Jean, it’s just like 
the magic lantern at the lecture, where the 
man told us about the seasons. There’s the 
sun in the middle, and the little balls round for 
the earth. Let’s play at having a lecture ; it’s 
such capital fun, and you shall be the people, 
except — oh, what a bother! — there only ought 
to be four little balls for the four seasons, and 
that stupid door’s got eight in it. What shall 
we do ? We can’t play, after all.” And Roger 
looked so disappointed. 

“ Couldn’t we block up some of them ?” sug- 


gested Jean, whose intellect, if not so searching 
as her brother’s, was of a more practical turn. 

“ So w r e could ; only Gurtha’s in such a bad 
temper, she wouldn’t give us any thing to block 
them with, and mamma said she must be alone. 
I know ; I’ve got my pocket-handkerchief, and 
you’ve got yours, too ; we’ll tear them in two, 
and that’ll just stop the four holes.” 

“ But what will Gurtha say when they go 
into the wash?” urged Jean. 

“Oh, bother Gurtha! she’s always coming 
in the road ; we can’t stop to think about her ; 
and besides, you know, we must block them up 
with something, or we can’t get on.” And in 
half a minute Roger had riven the handker- 
chiefs into four portions, which he stuffed into 
four of the holes, and then, darting into his 
room, and pulling the lath out of the blind, he 
came back triumphantly, and began his lecture. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, this diagram rep- 
resents the phenomena of the seasons. You 
will observe — Oh ! and, Jean, what do you 
think ?” he continued, dropping suddenly into 
the colloquial style, “ what do you think ? He 
says the moon is full of hills and valleys, just 
like our own earth, and with Lord Rosse’s tel- 
escope — that’s an immense big one, you know 
— you can see them as plain as can be; and 
when the sunrises, the tc cm it r, 

like little bits and drops • i I . , 

wouldn’t you like to sec 

“ Yes, perhaps,” said J . pro} ->g her 
weary little back against t 
go on lecturing.” 

“Oh! that’s lecture, . . ■ < 

don’t say it just like the n; r : tut, Jean, 

look at the diagram; it’ er so im ch 

nearer the top of the wall. What ever makes 
it move up like that ? I wonder if I could find 
it out in my ‘ Natural Philosophy.’ ” 

“ Bother your philosophy ! Will you ever 
get away to bed, then, both of you ?” shouted 
the ubiquitous Gurtha, appearing suddenly on 
the scene with her dishcloth. “Did ever any 
body see the likes? and going on for eight 
o’clock, as it’s been this ever so long past ! 
You shall never have a bit of bolonge again for 
your supperses — no, that you sha’n’t — as long as 
the breath goes up and down in my bodv, you 
sha’n’t!” 

“You shut up there, Gurtha,” said Roger, 
bursting open the door of his room ; whereupon 
the diagram suddenly disappeared, and rusliir , 
to the window, which commanded a prospect r 
that terribly truth-speaking gnomon the pep 
lar-tree. “There’s the shadow, and it’s o 
a very little bit — ” 

“A plague upon your poplar-trees !” st 
ed Gurtha, stamping with impotent vex- -n. 
“You piece of imperence, you ! you goc i 
nothing young vagabond ! And after that 
bolonge, as you couldn’t have had it better — 
no, not if you’d been a born prince hisself. I'll 
teach you to sauce me, with your shadders and 
such like rubbish ! Get away with you this 
minute — do; and if I have to come and speak 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


17 


to you again, I’ll give you summut as’ll make 
you remember it, see if I won’t — yes, if you’d 
' 1 the ' * vs* n Willowmarslies to stuff 

down my throat !” 

Oi ! Guru a, leaded little Jean, “don’t 
b hi? • only giving me a lecture 

about astronomy.” 

* ‘ L ':tt\ r , i r. d e.p. . . said Gurtha, with mag- 
i'. . v. t ' It’s himself wants it ; and 

si irgyrr . s it lis tongue-end, while he’d 
persuade you ; was white afore your very 
eyes. I never see his like for giving an answer 
back again. He’ll come to no good with it, 
see if he won’t. Get away to bed, both of you, 
or you’ll not get a bite of any thing for your 
supperses to-morrow.” 

Roger went into his room, calmly triumph- 
ant. Going to bed was a duty, but the shadow 
of the poplar-tree was a fact; and there was 
the confidence of a little Galileo in his face as 
he began pulling off his jacket. 

“ Help me, Gurtha — I’m so tired,” said Jean, 
stretching out her lean, bony arms as she prop- 
ped herself against the banisters. 

“Ay, that will I !” And Gurtha raised the 
little cripple in her sturdy grasp, a quick change 
coming over both face and voice as she carried 
her into the bedroom. “It’s tired vou’ll be 
the chapter, X warrant. 
5 " it if h’i kno vod he l none rat- 
tle ay > know but 

,:cs to give 

' . sis sets her- 

sslf agi: < st it ■: Lavu tc face it some of 

those days, though.” 

N ever heed, honey, never heed ; I was only 
a-talking to myself. It’s a way I’ve got with 
living maid of all work where there isn’t an- 
other kept.” 

And Gurtha bustled about, and never spoke 
another word until the little cripple was safe in 
bed. 

As the twilight began to fall, Mrs. Monkes- 
ton came up. She heard Jean’s prayers first, 
kissed the wan, worn little face, and then pass- 
ed on to the other room, where her eldest-born, 
Roger, strong, bold, handsome as a young Her- 
cules, lay fidgeting and tumbling on his bed. 
She knelt beside him while he said his simple 
prayer; it was soon over; then he unclasped 
hi ’ V ; % and looked up for the usual good- 

>ger, you haven’t asked God to for- 
r any wrong you may have done.” 
.‘.other,” said the boy, thoughtfully 
:sly! “I don’t know that I’ve done 

■ ; .g wrong to-day. I don’t need to ask 

o forgive me.” 

\ Lonkeston was a wise woman. She 
uia not at once, with the sharp scythe of doc- 
trinal reproof, mow down this little shoot of 
innocent satisfaction in the boy’s heart. She 
knew that his honest self-consciousness would 
do that in its own time — do it perhaps the 
sooner for this very fearless assumption of rcc- 
2 


titude, which could not kneel to ask forgiveness 
for an unfelt fault. She only said, gravely, 

“My boy, that is for yourself to decide. I 
can not tell. But if you have nothing to be 
forgiven, is there nothing vou want to ask God 
for?” 

“ No, mother. I’ve asked Him to take care 
of every body I love, and there’s nothing else. 
There is something I do want very much — ever 
so much, but it’s no use asking God for it. If 
I had a telescope, mother,” and the boy’s eyes 
flashed brightly, “a real, great telescope, that 
would show the mountains in the moon, I should 
be quite — quite content ; but it would cost ever 
so much, and God doesn’t give people things 
like that when they ask him.” 

“Perhaps not, Roger; but you might ask 
him to help you to be a brave, industrious, hon- 
est boy, and then some day you may be able to 
buy a telescope for yourself. That would be 
God giving it to you, just the same.” 

“Not just the same, mother; but I’ll try. 
Now kiss me, and good-night.” 

An hour later, when the night shadows had 
quite gathered round, Roger called to his sis- 
ter, 

“ Jean, are you asleep ?” 

“No,” answered a weary little voice. 

“Because I’ve found out now why our dia- 
gram went up to the top of ‘the wall; because 
the sun had been going down all the time. I 
could show you it beautifully if I only had a 
candle, but Gurtha would be so cross ! You know 
it’s the sun that sends the rays across ; and as 
one end goes down the other must go up, just 
like a seesaw — can’t you 'understand ?” 

“ I understand a seesaw, but I can’t see what 
it has to do with the round spots — and I’m so 
sleepy.” 

“ You’re a little stupid, Jean ! I don’t mean 
I'm vexed, but it’s so stupid not to want to find 
out things ! But 1*11 get a candle to-morrow 
and show you, first thing, before I forget. Per- 
haps it’ll be in the ‘Natural Philosophy,’ too !” 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Monkeston kept her solitary 
watch by the lattice window, looking away to 
the far-off dim gray towers of Cruxborough 
Minster, and the dim g^ay years of the life 
which must be traveled alone now even to its 
end. 

o 

CHAPTER IY. 

Twelve years before this night when Mrs. 
Monkeston sat in her house a widow and des- 
olate, she had come to it a happy bride, with 
such hope, such trust, such joy, as may fill the 
heart of a loving, noble-spirited woman, whose 
own cup of life’s good is to measure its fullness 
by that which she can put into the lives of oth- 
ers. She was two or three years older than 
her husband, but still young and fair, and of 
that somewhat stately presence from which the 
slow lapse of time takes little of its beauty ; and 
as they sat side by side in church the first Sun- 


18 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


day after their home-coming — she, according 
to the fashion of the time, in all her bridal 
bravery ; he, proud, gay, lightsome — the village 
maidens looked enviously upon her, and the 
elder women hoped all would be well. 

For a while it was. That old gabled house, 
standing back a little way from the green, be- 
longed to one of the best farms in the parish 
of Willowmarshes. There were no empty stack- 
yards, no deserted sheds, no unoccupied folds, 
when old Andrew Monkeston, retiring from 
business a year or two before his son’s marriage, 
handed over to him the entire concern ; hand- 
ed also with it the heritage of a name respected 
in the place for generations past, and the not 
less precious heritage of a constitution hale, 
sound, and strong enough to have carried. its 
owner, were he so minded, to a hearty old age. 

Were he so minded. But character does 
not descend with a good name, nor power to 
hold wealth with the broad acres and well-filled 
purses of thrifty forefathers. Ralph Monkes- 
ton was one of those jolly, selfish, pleasure-lov- 
ing men who get out of the world as much good 
as it can give, and then hang on, a helpless 
burden, to any one who will lend them a help- 
ing hand. After a few months of married life, 
Mrs. Monkeston found that she had made a fa- 
tal mistake in promising love, honor, obedience 
to a man who could command none of them. 
Slowly there dawned upon her the conviction, 
surely the bitterest of any which can force it- 
self upon the mind of an honest woman, that 
all noble effort, all worthy striving, all earnest 
endeavor after the right, must come from her- 
self alone ; that she must be her own guide, 
her own support over the rough ways of life ; 
that, instead of receiving, she must forever give, 
and spend her strength in hiding the faults of 
him whose steadfast goodness should have been 
her pride and pleasure. 

Mrs. Monkeston bore her trouble bravely. 
For a while she so shielded her husband’s 
weakness that his good name in the village was 
untouched. The birth of her two children, and, 
soon after, the accident which made the young- 
er of them, little Jean, a cripple for life, nerved 
her to new courage and energy. Love for her 
children made her strong to do that which re- 
spect for their father could no longer inspire. 
For their sakes she toiled and labored, looked 
after the house, kept her husband’s books, trans- 
acted his business so far as a woman could do 
it, dismissed all needless servants, retaining 
only the rude but honest Gurtha, and in her 
scant hours of leisure taught her children, and 
made or mended their clothes ; while their fa- 
ther, who could sing a song, or tell a story, or 
take a hand at whist as well as any one in the 
parish, was delighting his companions at the 
village inn, or boozing with Hiram Armstrong 
at the “Crown and Cushion,” in Cruxborough. 

But in time that sort of life tells its own 
story. A woman can not do battle with wrong, 
injustice, untruth, and selfishness — do battle 
with them, too, when they are cloaked under 


a guise of good-fellowship which makes their 
possessor the most popular man of his set, and 
keep all the while a smiling lip and an un- 
wrinkled brow. The bitterness of hope unful- 
filled, the terrible struggle to keep love from 
turning into contempt, will leave their mark 
in the sad, stern face of the woman who has 
felt them. People began to take note, of Mrs. 
Monkeston’s altered manner — to find nei .so 
pleasant a companion as in the early years of 
her married life — to remark a certain grave 
repression about her, a restraint and hardness, 
which unfitted her for pleasant, social court- 
esies, and made her at last a woman rather to 
be respected for her uprightness than loved for 
her sweetness. 

Still the big, well-established old farmstead 
at the Willowmarshes had attractions sufficient 
to draw town -people thither in the summer- 
time. Ralph Monkeston, so all his friends said, 
was certainly an idle, good-for-nothing fellow. 
His wife had long ago lost her brightness, and 
was now chiefly valuable as an authority in 
pickling and preserving ; but for all that the old 
house was a pleasant place to go to on a sun- 
ny June afternoon. Sweet was the wind which 
blew across its meadows in hay-time ; soft and 
juicy the peaches which nestled their cheeks 
on the south wall ; round and ripe and rosy 
the apples which lay almost ankle-deep in the 
orchards ; and rich beyond compare the cream 
which Gurtha was ever proud to skim from her 
bowls for the “quality.” So WiH€.v , Tpe’- < ;l , > 
was not without its visitors, even when the tide 
of prosperity had manifestly begun to ebb from 
it. Mr. Ballinger found nothing more conven- 
ient than to drive over occasionally with his 
wife and two or three little Ballingers, to spend 
a long day at the farm, leaving one of the chil- 
dren behind, perhaps for a week ; for a breath 
of country air was such a fine thing for it, and 
might come between it and an unpleasantly 
long doctor’s bill. And Mrs. Ballinger, who, 
like her husband, enjoyed being benevolent at 
other people’s expense, and had a great objec- 
tion to giving dinners at her own house when 
nothing was to be gained by them, found it a 
wonderful accommodation to pay off her social 
debts by bringing three or four lady friends out 
to Willowmarshes, and giving them a splendid 
day among the peaches and apricots of the old 
farm-garden. And then the best of the ar- 
rangement, both for the lady friends and for 
Mrs. Ballinger, was that they might, with per- 
fect impunity, urge Mrs. Monkeston to return 
the visit when she came to Cruxborough ; be- 
cause every body knew that, except to go to 
church or to market, she never set foot out of 
her own door from month’s end to month’s end, 
poor thing ! Mr. Balmain, the doctor, too, 
though fighting shy of more intercourse with 
Ralph Monkeston than was absolutely needful 
to keep up the professional connection — there 
was his character to be considered, as well as 
that troublesome risk of being asked for odd 
fifty pounds now and then — had no objection 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


10 


to drive his children out in hay-time for a day’s 
frolic in the meadows ; and if Mrs. Monkeston 
sent them home laden with bottles of cream, 
pats of butter, or satchels full of rich orchard 
fruit, why, so much the kinder of her ; and some 
day, when nothing else came in the way, Mrs. 
Balmain quite meant to ask Roger and Jean 
to come over to Cruxborough, and take it out by 
going to sec the city sights. Only, of course, 
a doctor’s w T ife had so many claims upon her 
time, and position was a thing that required a 
good deal of consideration, and really those 
little Monkestons w r erc not always dressed in a 
fashion which made it agreeable for a lady of 
her standing in Cruxborough to walk them 
about the streets. 

So that in summer-time, when the old place 
was at its best and brightest, Mrs. Monkeston 
was seldom without guests, until, one dusky 
June night, death put an end to the miserable 
failure of a life which had worked so little save 
evil either for itself or others. Ralph Monk- 
eston was brought home dead. He had been 
thrown from his horse and killed, said the 
newspaper, with considerate courtesy. He 
had fallen into the dike while coming home 
drunk from a carouse at the “ Crown and Cush- 
ion,” said most of the companions who had 
praised him living as a jolly fellow, “ the best 
hand in the world at a song or a story.” He 
had drowmed himself in a fit of despair and 
remorse usaid one or two w r ho knew how, under 
all tin. -rust of selfishness and appetite, there 
glow r ed fit times a little spark of soul, just 
enough to show the man to himself, and mad- 
den him by hinting what he might have been. 

And so, as we have seen, Mrs. Monkeston 
was left a widow r , and the village children had 
a rare treat in watching the funeral trail its slow 
length across the village green, and there was 
a solemn dinner, after which the guests went 
cheerily home, much relieved that all was over. 

Mr. Ballinger was still further relieved by 
the conversation which took place between him- 
self and Mr. Balmain respecting poor Monk- 
eston’s prospects of assistance from his rich old 
crony, Hiram Armstrong. There was now no 
further difficulty about the matter of the scrip ; 
it might be set down with impunity to his own 
account, and the value of it made up to Ralph’s 
widow and family by that professional help and 
advice which would really be far more precious 
to them than a few pounds doled out from time 
to time in trifling installments. 

For Mr. Ballinger had looked into the affairs 
a little already, and they were, as he had ex- 
pected, very much entangled. Any other so- 
licitor in Cruxborough, he was quite sure, would 
have charged Mrs. Monkeston the value of the 
scrip over and over again for reducing them to 
any thing like order. She might think herself 
very fortunate in having a man like himself to 
stand by her. It would be a serious labor, a 
very serious labor, to square matters up. And 
then, even when they were squared up, there 
would be the family to look after; Jean, poor 


child! to get into an orphanage, or something 
of that sort, and the boy to educate, and the 
widow to be put into the way of earning a re- 
spectable living. A housekeeper’s situation at 
a distance, he thought, would be the most de- 
sirable opening for her ; because, of course, it 
would be very unpleasant for himself and Mrs. 
Ballinger, with their children growing up about 

them, and a position to be maintained, to have 
a person even distantly connected with them liv- 
ing in poverty anywhere in the immediate neigh- 
borhood, or perpetually sponging upon them for 
money to keep herself from being a disgrace to 
the family. No ; Mrs. Monkeston must get in 
somewhere as housekeeper or companion, and 

then, with the children disposed of as aforesaid, 
there would be an end of serious inconvenience. 

But Mrs. Monkeston astonished him very 
much by taking matters into her own hand. 
Finding how Mr. Ballinger was intending to 
dispose of her, she quietly excused him from 
further interference in her affairs. The prop- 
erty on the farm was valued, the bills called in. 
When the accounts were balanced, she found 
that, after all just debts and funeral expenses 
were paid, she would have, apart froni'her own 
marriage settlement of fifty pounds a year, about 
half that sum in ready money to begin the world 
with. 

How, under so small an amount of sail, to 
convoy even the tiniest bark past the quick- 
sands of debt and embarrassment and bring it 
safely to port, was a problem which most wom- 
en would have found difficult of solution. Mrs. 
Monkeston took long counsel with herself and 
her trusted friend, old Dr. Boniface, the vicar 
of the parish. At all hazards, she determined 
to accept nothing from Mr. Ballinger. She 
knew help from him, if given at all, would be 
given from the cold hand of patronizing conde- 
scension ; and from that hand the pride which 
had come down to her from an honest old fam- 
ily forbade her to take it. 

Dr. Boniface had told her of a little, quaint, 
old-fashioned house, just under the east end of 
Cruxborongh Minster. She knew it well. It 
seemed to have grown like an excrescence out 
of one end of the ancient episcopal palace, which, 
long ago deserted by its original occupiers, and 
now let out in separate tenements, formed one 
side of the road leading from that end of the 
Minster into the market-place. A great bow- 
window looked out into the street opposite the 
Minster front, but the rest of the house faced 
a little -walled-in garden, out of which nothing 
could be seen but the two west towers and the 
tall chimneys of the new palace and deanery 
on the north side of the Minster. This little 
house belonged to the dean and chapter, and 
had been unoccupied for some time, so they 
were willing to let it at a reduced rate, with im- 
mediate possession. Mrs. Monkeston went over 
to Cruxborough a few weeks after her husband’s 
death — the luxury of unlimited retirement being 
one in which she was unable to indulge — took 
the old house, arranged with the clerk for its 


20 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


being put into habitable order, and on her re- 
turn to Willowmarshes sent an advertisement 
to the Cruxborough paper, announcing to her 
friends and the public that it was her intention 
in the following October to open a shop at No. 
2 Minster Precincts, for the sale of home-made 
linen, fancy-work, and embroider}’. 

That was the first move. She then advised 
with Dr. Boniface again, who was one of the 
Cathedral canons, and he promised to use his 
influence with the dean to get little Roger into 
the Minster choir, where he would have ten 
pounds a year and free education. That was eas- 
ily accomplished ; for Roger’s fine, well-trained 
voice was daily gaining strength and beauty, 
and promised some day to be a mine of wealth 
to him. Then Mrs. Monkeston selected from 
the large, rambling old farm-house such furni- 
ture as would be needed for their more strait- 
ened quarters at Cruxborough, and from the 
sale of the remainder found herself in posses- 
sion of money enough to stock the little bow- 
windowed shop at the east end with such store 
of goods as she hoped would attract passers-by. 

This done, she informed Mr. Ballinger of her 
plans. 

That worthy gentleman was divided between 
astonishment, indignation, and satisfaction — as- 
tonishment at the faculty and independence of 
his cousin’s widow ; indignation that any one, 
even distantly connected with a respectable fam- 
ily like his own, should dare to compromise his 
position by coming without his sanction and 
setting up a shop in the very city to whose most 
select circle of society he hoped one day to be 
admitted; and satisfaction that the care of a 
fatherless family had thus, without any thing 
that appeared like shirking duty on his part, 
been removed from his shoulders — removed, 
too, in such a manner as to give him, even 
while rejoicing at the relief, an opportunity of 
expressing a certain amount of aggrieved sen- 
sibility which would now stand in the place of 
his own personal trouble. 

Accordingly, when the widow came over to 
Cruxborough to tell him of her arrangements, 
Mr. Ballinger did not lose a moment in express- 
ing that aggrieved sensibility* Of course, when 
there was nothing left for him to do, it was com- 
paratively easy for him to say what he could 
have done, and what, in fact, he might say he 
fully intended to have done for the family, if 
Mrs. Monkeston had from the first thrown her- 
self upon his benevolence, and left the conduct 
of her affairs to his more mature judgment. 
But — and Mr. Ballinger rubbed his hands com- 
placently as he sat before his desk in the pri- 
vate office — as she had chosen to take matters 
into her own keeping, he would not complain ; 
he would only say that she had his best wishes, 
his very best wishes. Nothing would give him 
more pleasure than to learn that the shop — 
here Mr. Ballinger’s lip curled slightly, but 
then Cruxborough was such a frightfully aris- 
tocratic little place — was paying its way. And 
when Roger was old enough to be placed in 


something permanent, he might perhaps — of 
course he would not bind himself to any thing 
of the kind — but he might perhaps find him a 
place in the office, if Mrs. Monkeston’s own 
superior judgment — and Mr. Ballinger empha- 
sized this very strongly — did not lead her to 
some more brilliant opening for him. As for 
Jean, poor child, he might hint that he had been 
naming the case to numerous friends of influ- 
ence and position both in Cruxborough and the 
metropolis, and he thought it highly probable 
she might have been admitted into an institu- 
tion for incurables ; but, of course, Mrs. Monk- 
eston’s independent action had quite put a stop 
to any thing of that sort, and therefore he could 
only say, in conclusion, he hoped she would find 
she had done as well for herself as those whom 
Providence had pointed out for her natural 
friends and helpers would have been willing to 
do for her 

And with this splendid deliverance of his sen- 
timents, Mr. Ballinger bowed the widow out of 
his office. 

“A plucky woman — a very plucky woman !” 
he said to himself, as, shutting the door after 
her, he turned to his strong-box to look at that 
agreement again — “ a very plucky -woman in- 
deed!” And now. Rog< ' tiop 

being provided for 

ital education, too, quite good enough for the 
lad — old Hiram A v 

tions were alread\ • isfh 1 Those ankn 
shares would be alienated iYorn du: _ gihal 

purpose if, under -csenl eir Jinstai they 

were handed over to Mrs, 
was a woman who could dc well enough for 
herself ; no need to burden her with the char- 
ity of a man whom she had set at defiance. 
He, Mr. Ballinger, had done his duty. lie had 
offered to help her far beyond the value of the 
money; she had refused that help — flatly, al- 
most insolently, refused it. Did not common 
justice, then, demand that she should be let 
alone ? Would it not be insulting a -woman of 
her spirit to offer her money ? Besides, was 
there not to have been a consideration to him- 
selffor the time he had spent in going back- 
ward and forward at various times, consulting 
with the old man ? Had not Mr. Armstrong 
said, as plainly as words could speak, during 
their last interview, that it would be made up 
to him ? That intention certainly was quite 
as clear as the other intention about helping 
Ralph Monkeston, and only death prevented it, 
most unfortunately for himself, he must say — 
from being carried into effect. Therefore, Mrs. 
Monkeston, having virtually declined the mon- 
ey, or, at any rate, the equivalent of it, his serv- 
ices, would it not be both just to himself, and 
entirely in accordance with his respected client’s 
known wishes, if lie appropriated the bank shares 
in place of the consideration which was to have 
been paid ? especially as there were great de- 
mands upon him now ; the children were grow- 
ing up, and being very expensively educated — 
public school for Reginald, private foreign gov- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


21 


erness for Matilda; and next would come their 
introduction into society, when that new house 
on the Portman Iioad was finished, and the fam- 
ily had removed into it. Mrs. Ballinger said 
she meant her children to he in the best cir- 
cles, so that they might have suitable chances 
of settling in life ; and that sort of thing could 
not be kept up without means; and where 
were means to come from, he should like to 
know, if a man did not take what rightfully be- 
longed to him ? 

But still he would wait a little longer before 
he destroyed that scrap of paper containing the 
agreement. Caution could do no harm. The 
shares were already transferred to himself ; no 
one else knew of the agreement. The inter- 
est would be duly paid to him. He would let 
matters stand over a week or two, and then de- 
cide. 

So, for the second time, he put the unsigned 
paper back again, and went home to consult 
with Mrs. Ballinger about the furnishing of the 
new house which they were building on the 
Portman Road. 


CI T ''TER Y. 

Monkeston had thus ru tit- 
les ' . • hilanthropic relative of the 

; : ire of ’ r ng to her needs, that was 

, allinger and the brood of 
lift ie ! i be deprived of the priv- 
ilege the farm-house garden 

iuritg oil which elapsed between 

th • sit CiV-on: of poor Ralph’s affairs and the 
opening of that ready-made linen shop under ] 
the cast end of Cruxborough Minster. 

Accordingly, the Ballinger matron and chil- 
dren came as usual, and helped themselves to 
wha; could be had for the gathering, Mrs. Bal- 
linger giving them a sort of promissory note for 
the obligation, by saying how glad she should 
be to mention the shop to her numerous friends 
in Cruxborough ; she was sure a word from her 
would be sufficient to insure their custom, and 
she had no doubt Mrs. Monkeston would find 
the business answer quite satisfactorily. It 
was an excellent move, she thought; people 
with shops of that kind always did seem to get 
a living, and she had no doubt Canon Boni- 
face, too, would drop a hint to his own set, 
which would make them willing to patronize 
her. Indeed, she should not be in the least 
surprised if Mrs. Monkeston soon began to save 
money by it. But no word of coming to call 
upon her in that snug little parlor behind the 
shop, or of asking her out to the new house on 
the Portman Road, which was to be finished 
by Christmas ; whereat Mrs. Monkeston rather 
wondered, so many invitations to come over 
and spend long days at Cruxborough having 
been lavished upon her during the summer 
raids of the Balmains and Ballingers in years 
gone by. But she said nothing, thinking the 


hospitality would perhaps be more ready for 
that it had not been arranged beforehand. 

It was on one of these last visits that Master 
Reginald and Miss Matilda Ballinger accom- 
panied their mamma. Master Reginald, a lad 
of thirteen, was home for his holidays from a 
fashionable school for the sons of gentlemen 
only ; and while fully alive to the charms of 
ripe gooseberries and cherries, was equally sen- 
sitive to the exact minimum of respect due 
from his important self to the son of a farmer 
who had left his affairs in an unsatisfactory 
state, and whose widow, moreover, was about 
to keep a shop in Cruxborough. Miss Matilda 
was a year younger than her brother, a perfect 
little grown-up woman of the world. Her 
French governess had already succeeded, great- 
ly to Mrs. Ballinger’s satisfaction, in making 
her a model of propriety ; and the child could 
enter a room and entertain her mamma’s guests 
in conversation, with a self-possession which 
promised boundless success when she should 
be admitted to the full benefits of society. 

The children got on very well for a while. 
Matilda patronized little Jean, told her all about 
the town fashions, the new frocks her ihamma 
had bought for her when poor Mr. Monkeston 
died. “Quite complimentary mourning, you 
know, dear, because your pa was such a distant 
relation, and we are only to tvear it three 
months. Black doesn’t suit my complexion at 
all, ma says ; but every thing has been made as 
fashionably as can be.” 

And Miss Matilda looked with pitying con- 
descension upon Jean’s black-stuff frock, which 
was neither of the finest quality nor the new- 
est cut, and which hung in sad creases over her 
misshapen shoulders. But then, as Matilda 
said to her, with the greatest cheerfulness, it 
was not so important for children like her to be 
particularly dressed. Nobody would ever take 
any notice of what she had on, and whether it 
suited her or not — an assurance which Jean 
received in perfect good faith, seeing in it as 
yet only the promise of an unbounded liberty 
to run about and dabble as much as she liked 
in the water-fall or on the mossy steps by the 
river’s brink. And she listened with wide- 
eyed wonder, not touched with the faintest 
streak of envy, as the town-bred little girl told 
her about the Christmas parties they went to 
in Cruxborough ; real parties, where they were 
dressed in white muslin and kid gloves, and 
had flowers and ribbons in their hair, and were 
asked to dance by the young gentlemen, and 
handed in to supper, exactly like grown-up 
people. 

It w T as enchanting, Miss Matilda said, as she 
looked with gracious pity upon this benighted 
little heathen of a country child, who had nev- 
er had white kid gloves on in its life, and whose 
black straggling locks were ignorant as yet 
of the civilizing effects of rose-colored rib- 
bon. There ought to be missionaries, Matilda 
thought, to people like these. She was quite 
sure they wanted them as much as the Ilin- 




THE BLUE RIBBON. 


does who embroidered that delightful muslin 
and those lovely shawls which ladies some- 
times wore when they came to call upon her 
mamma. 

At last, Jean, who was beginning to be 
rather tired of hearing about dress-making, pro- 
posed that they should go into the fruit-garden, 
where Master Reginald had been taking, his 
pleasure for some time. That was altogether 
a pleasant change. A girl of twelve, come she 
from under the tuition of ever so fashionable a 
governess, must be very far gone in worldli- 
ness if it can assert its influence over her in 
the midst of a full ripe bed of gooseberries, or, 
while standing under a cherry-tree, holding up 
her apron to catch its luxurious crimson rain- 
fall. Here, at last, Miss Matilda manifested 
her share in the tastes which are common alike 
to the Brahmans and Pariahs of society, stuff- 
ing herself to repletion with fruit of all sorts ; 
while Master Reginald, indulging in the same 
pleasing task, wisely relaxed the restraint prop- 
er to be observed between the upper and lower 
classes, and allowed Roger to pelt him with 
unlimited showers of cherries, or fill his pock- 
ets with any quantity of juicy, golden egg- plums. 

So for a while all went merrily enough in 
the farm orchard. But it would seem that full- 
ness of fruit has a somewhat similar effect to 
fullness of bread upon those who have reached 
it. When he had satisfied himself with cher- 
ries and plums, Master Reginald declined any 
longer to observe the courtesies of life with the 
country cousin who was treating him so gener- 
ously. 

Roger’s spirit was as intolerant of insolence 
as of unreasonable contradiction, and the two 
boys came to high words. Reginald wanted to 
break off a large branch from the cherry-tree 
and carry it to a seat in the corner of the or- 
chard, that he might, with greater comfort to 
himself, pluck the fruit and tie it into bunches, 
to take home With him. Roger resisted this 
proposal, as being dishonest to the gentleman 
who had taken the farm, and, along with it, 
the orchard trees. Master Reginald fired up 
at what he was pleased to call an imputation 
on his gentlemanliness. 

“You little stable-boy!” said the young 
cion of the upper classes, swelling himself out 
like an indignant turkey-cock, “I’ll teach you 
to call me dishonest. Your rascal of a father 
owed money t© nearly every gentleman in 
Cruxborough, and you talk about doing what 
is right and just! There, sir, take that for 
your impertinence ; and next time you speak 
to a gentleman, try to do it properly!” 

And Reginald hit his young host a blow over 
the face. 

Roger’s eyes flashed ominously, but he did 
not strike back again. A vague notion of hon- 
or kept him from fighting a lad who was for 
the time being a guest in his mother’s house. 

“Yes, and that too, you coward!” pursued 
the lad, thinking that Roger’s silence was 
caused either by shame or fear, and hitting 


him another blow. “ I shall tell my papa when 
I go home that you’re a coward. You say insult- 
ing things to gentlemen, and then you daren’t 
defend yourself. As if my papa couldn’t buy 
your trumpery orchard over and over again !” 

Here Jean came forward as fast as her weak 
little limbs could carry her, and stood between 
them. 

“Oh, Reginald! how can you? Roger 
wasn’t doing you any harm. He didn’t mean 
to say you were dishonest. He only said it 
wouldn’t be right to break the cherry-tree, now 
that it doesn’t belong to us. Do let us all be 
friends again.” 

Master Reginald looked down upon the tiny 
mediator, and replied with lofty contempt 
worthy of a youth who had been educated at a 
school “ for the sons of gentlemen only,” 

“You little brown-faced hunchback! who 
cares for you, I should like to know ? You’d 
better go and tie yourself to your mother’s 
apron-string — it’s the safest place for you.” 

That was too much for Roger. His ideas 
of honor only prevented him from avenging in- 
sults offered by guests to himself. Let those 
who offered them to his sister look out ! With 
the red glow of passion burning in his young 
face, he threw off' his jacket, dashed at Master 
Reginald, and the two were soon locked in 
close battle, Jean and Matilda running off in 
dismay to a distant part of the garden, leaving 
their brothers to fight it out by themselves. 

They took refuge in the summer- house. 
Matilda made a few wise observations on the 
iniquity of fighting ; but as she had no doubt 
her brother would be able to give Roger a good 
thrashing, she did not feel called upon to go 
and tell her mamma ; and poor Jean, frighten- 
ed and trembling, never thought of doing it. 

“If you please,” said the child at last, look- 
ing up into Matilda’s face, “what did Reginald 
mean by calling me a brown-faced hunchback? 
Nobody ever called me that before. Is it any- 
thing naughty ?” 

“ Oh ! dear, no — not in the least,” said Ma- 
tilda, delighted to be able to set her unfortunate 
little cousin right on another point. “Of 
course it was very rude of him ; but then, you 
know, boys will be boys, and he didn’t mean 
any harm. You know you are rather deform- 
ed ” — here Matilda laid her hand with dignity 
upon Jean’s crooked shoulder — “and that 
makes you different from other children ; and 
you must not expect, as you grow up, that peo- 
ple will take much notice of you,, or be very 
fond of you.” 

“Won’t they?” said Jean, her great brown 
eyes dilating with a vague, mysterious fear. 

“No. I wonder your mamma has never 
explained it to you before. My mamma says 
she has often meant to say something about it. 
But of course you must try to be very good, 
and then, even if people don’t like you, it will 
not signify so much.” 

Jean had slipped quietly from her seat, and 
with quivering lips was going toward the house. 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


23 


“Oh! don’t go away. I want you to show 
me where the large purple plums are ; it is very j 
rude to leave your friends by themselves ; and j 
you know I can’t go back to the boys now. I 
shall tell mamma that you are very rude.” 

But Jean did not hear. The tears, first 
drops of many an after-rain of sorrow, were fall- 
ing slowly upon her pinafore. When she saw 
Matilda following her, she made a desperate 
effort, and darted through a gooseberry-bed, 
which was the nearest cut to the back-kitch- 
en door. Matilda’s new dress kept her in the 
broad path, and so Jean escaped. 

Meantime the two boys had been fighting 
on, and in their fight had rolled, struggled, and 
tumbled from the cherry-tree end of the or- 
chard to a wicket-gate opening from the oppo- 
site side of it into a field through which there 
was a bridle -road to Cruxborough. For a 
time the victory seemed to be on the side of 
Reginald, who was taller, stouter, and strong- 
er than his adversary. Over and over again 
Roger staggered and nearly fell ; but over and 
over again he returned to the charge, deter- 
mined not to give in until he had avenged the 
insult offered to his sister. At last the right 
prevailed, helped, perhaps, by the undigested 
mass of cherries and plums which were begin- 
ning to press rather uncomfortably upon Mas- 
ter Reginald’s internal arrangements. At any 
rate, that young hero succumbed to fate ; a 
well-planted blow from Roger sent him back- 
ward' into a bed of nettles, from whose stinging 
embraces he poured forth yells of mingled rage 
and mortification. 

“Halloo! halloo, youngsters! Hold hard 
there ! What’s all the row about ?” 

And a little man with gray hair, who had 
been riding leisurely along the bridle-road, 
pulled up and looked over the wicket-gate. 

“Why, Master Reginald Ballinger, is that 
you? What on earth have you been doing? 
Crying, too!” 

“ Mamma brought us to spend the day at 
Willowmarshes, and this rude boy has been 
fighting me,” roared Master Reginald, making 
frantic efforts to disentangle himself from the 
nettles. 

“And beating you, too, I think,” said the old 
gentleman, dryly. “What did you fight for? 
Don’t you know it is very naughty for little 
boys to fight?” he continued, with rather a 
funny twinkle in his eye, addressing himself to 
Roger, who, with head thrown back and chest 
squared, was standing over his fallen foe, ready 
to receive submission or renew the onslaught. 

“He called my sister a little brown-faced 
hunchback, sir, and told her nobody cared for 
her,” answered Roger, the red anger-fire kin- 
dling again in his eyes. 

“And is she a hunchback?” asked the gen- 
tleman, gravely. 

“Yes, sir,” said Roger; but the anger had 
died out now, and his voice was full of tears. 

“I shall tell my papa,” screamed Reginald, 
who, after many spasmodic kicks and flings, 


had regained his feet. “ I shall tell my papa, 
and he’ll make you beg my pardon. Who did 
any harm to your ugly little brat of a sister, I 
should like to know ?” 

Roger sprang upon him like a young tiger, 
and down went Master Reginald into the net- 
tles again. 

“You shall pay for this!” he yelled. “I 
shall tell my papa, and he’ll have the law out 
of you.” 

“ I think,” said the old gentleman, quietly, 
“ you had better not say any thing to your 
papa about it. It isn’t a fine thing for a big 
boy to be beaten by a little boy at any time ; 
but especially when the big boy has been call- 
ing the little boy’s sister bad names. It would 
be more to the purpose if you were to ask the 
little boy’s pardon for what you have said.” 

“ Catch me !” growled Reginald. And then, 
under his breath, he added, “You’re an old fogy, 
you are !” 

“Now, my little man,” said the gentleman, 
“ if this big boy says lie’s sorry, are you ready 
to shake hands and be friends ?” 

“Yes, sir, if he’ll promise not to do it again.” 

“ Of course. Now, Ballinger, what do you 
say about it ?” 

But Master Reginald walked majestically 
away in the direction of the gooseberry-beds. 

“ What am I to do, sir, now ?” asked Roger, 
simply. 

“ Do ? Why, just go about your business ; 
and when you come across him again, behave 
as if nothing was the matter. I don’t think 
he’ll tackle you again ; but if he does, you can’t 
do better than serve him out the mixture as 
before. I don’t like fighting myself, when any 
thing else will do; but sometimes it won’t.” 

And having thus successfully read the Riot 
Act over the young insurgents, the gentleman 
rode away toward Cruxborough, a half-smile 
playing over his keen yet kindly face. 

“I’ll see that little man again,” he said to 
himself. “There’s stuff in him, if I mistake 
not.” 


CHAPTER VI. 

Rogeh’s first thought, after the ignominious 
retreat of his foe, was for Jean. He sought 
her all over the garden in vain ; he went to 
their favorite play -place on the mossy steps 
by the river’s brink — she was not there. He 
climbed down the bank to the water-fall, where 
they had been making the mill on their father’s 
funeral-day; but the place was empty. At last 
he applied to Gurtha, who was scouring the 
back kitchen. She pointed with her thumb in 
the direction of the two little rooms at the top 
of the dark landing. 

“ I seed her flew up that way a bit since. I 
lay a penny one of them fine stuck-up pieces 
from Cruxborough has been a-flyting of her. 
I’d serve ’em out, I would, if I could lay hands 
on ’em.” 


24 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


Roger raced up the stairs to the first of the 
little rooms. Jean lay on the crib, with her 
face to the wall. Her pinafore was crushed 
up under her cheek, and wet with tears ; her 
fingers were tightly clasped. Only a long', 
low, wailing sob broke now and then the si- 
lence of the room. 

“Jean,” said Roger, trying to speak as if 
nothing very sad had happened, though, indeed, 
he guessed that the poor little heart had been 
sore wounded — “ Jean, what for won’t you 
come and play ? It’s all right now. I’ve giv- 
en him a beating, and I don’t think he’ll do it 
again. Let’s go and gather them some plums 
to take home with them.” 

But Jean only moved wearily, away, and 
fresh tears rolled down the thin brown cheeks. 

“Jean,” and Roger lay down beside her, 
and pulled her face round to him, “ what for 
won’t you speak to me?” 

For he had never seen her grieved like this 
before. A harsh word, a careless push, would 
send her away silent for a while, if, as they 
played together, his boyish spirits got the bet- 
ter of his patience, and he chafed at her slow, 
halting ways. But then kindness soon brought 
the sunshine back again. Her merry, quaint 
laugh welled out fresh as ever, her queer little 
face lighted up with fun ; the harsh word was 
forgotten — for Jean never bore malice, never 
went to tell tales — and before the tears had 
had time to dry on her cheek, every thing was 
right again. Now she looked worn out, and 
there were shadows under her eyes, and the 
hands which he was trying to unclasp were 
cold as lead on that sunny summer day. 

“Jean, let’s go and do something,” said the 
boy ; “ it’s so stupid for you to stop here. Is 
any thing very bad the matter ?” 

She turned to him listlessly. The passion 
of her grief had spent itself now, but instead 
there was a patient hopelessness in her face, 
which, could he have understood it, was far, 
far sadder. 

“Roger, is it true? Won’t any body care 
for me now, because I am crooked and ugly ? 
Why didn’t you and mother tell me before ?” 

“You’re not ugly, Jean!” and Roger squeezed 
her up so tightly in his strong arms that the 
poor child cried for pain. “ Reginald’s a liar 
to tell you so ! And mother loves you as much 
as ever she can, and I love you too ; and it 
doesn’t matter what any one says, we shall keep 
on loving you. Come along, Jean ; I’ll go 
down to the steps with you, and we’ll have a 
play by ourselves, if you like. I don’t want 
ever to see that boy again — I don’t ; and we’ll 
just keep to ourselves, and it’ll be so nice. 
l)o come, Jean. I don’t want for you to 
stop up here, and your eyes are so red, and 
you look just as you did after you’d had the 
measles.” 

“I remember that,” said Jean, brightening 
up a little ; “ it was nice, and you were ill too, 
and we always had mother, and I’m quite sure 
she loved me then, because she used to kiss me 


so often. Matilda says I must be good, and 
then it won’t make so much difference.” 

“ Bother Matilda ! I wish she’d kill herself 
with eating plums ! She was standing at the 
tree, stuffing as fast as she could, when I came 
along here, and she called to me to ask where 
the peaches were, and said she hoped I wasn’t 
hurt. But come along, Jean; do let us go 
down stairs.” 

Jean washed her face, and smoothed h$r hair, 
and stroked down the crumpled pinafore, which 
would nevertheless tell its own sad story of 
tears. But Roger suggested that, when they 
got down to the steps, she should take it off', 
and they would fold it up very small, and he 
would sit upon it all the time while they fished, 
and that would be the same as mangling it, 
which seemed a quite satisfactory solution of 
the difficulty. So the children went hand in 
hand to their little play-room by the river’s 
brink, a strange new tenderness which he had 
never felt before, almost a man’s chivalrous in- 
stinct of protection, binding him to the little 
sister whose cause he had avenged. 

He thought she would soon forget all about 
the trouble, and be full of quiet fun as befefre. 
But Jean never forgot. The bitter fruit of the 
tree of knowledge, pressed upon her that day by 
no seeking of hers, was the beginning of a new 
life. Hitherto she had known naught but love, 
nor felt the difference between herself and oth- 
ers, save that her weakness made them care for 
her the more. Now she must live in the shad 
ow of a life set apart, unblest, so she had been 
told, by much cherishing or fondness. She 
was old enough to feel, with a sort of dim, un- 
reasoning fear, the terriblencss of that life. 
The blessing which might descend on all its pain 
she could not yet feel, nor the consecration 
►which might make its loneliness sublime. A 
few careless words had flung open wide the gate 
which led out of her childish Eden into the 
world’s great wilderness, and forth through 
that wilderness now, for good or for evil, she 
must travel until all the weary years were done. 

Master Reginald Ballinger, after driving his 
mamma and sister home in the cool of the even- 
ing, walked round to the office, for he could 
not delay the statement of his grievances until 
Mr. Ballinger came from business. Of course 
he gave his own account of the affair, wisely 
avoiding any mention of the taunt wtiich had 
led to the fight, or the opinion expressed there- 
upon by the little gentleman who happened to 
be riding past. 

Mr. Ballinger was quite ready to receive his 
son’s version ; indeed, just at that particular 
time few things could have given him greater sat- 
isfaction than some distinct, definite wrong on 
the part of the Monkestons, whose punishment 
might authorize him to carry out that deed of 
injustice which now he was longing, and yet 
afraid, to do. He was not the man, however, to 
fire into passion at an insult. lie did not, as 
Master Reginald desired, write at once to Mrs. 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


25 


Monkeston, requiring from her an unqualified 
apology for her son’s behavior. Something 
much more tangible than satisfaction of that 
sort was to be worked out of the occasion. 
Moreover, such a requisition would involve a 
dispute, perhaps a quarrel ; and it was not to 
his interest to quarrel with Mrs. Monkeston. 
An attitude of calm benevolence, always ready 
to help, but never making an actual move in 
that direction, was what he wished to preserve 
toward the AvidoAv and her family. He there- 
fore counseled forbearance, and sent his son 
away somewhat unsatisfied, with an exhortation 
to the forgiveness of injuries as part of a gentle- 
man’s education. “Revenge,” he said, “was 
a weak thing, a wrong thing. It would be 
nobler to overlook the whole affair, and trust to 
Roger’s own good feeling for an apology at some 
future time.” 

But when Reginald had gone away, Mr. 
Ballinger opened that strong-box and took out 
the agreement. So this little rip of a country 
lad had insulted his son ! Well. Fought him. 
Very well. Knocked him down. Very well 
indeed. And this was the boy for whose edu- 
cation he was to provide out of the interest of 
those shares which in strict justice belonged to 
himself, as a consideration for the trouble he 
had taken about old Hiram Armstrong’s affairs. 
Apology indeed! Master Roger’s apology 
should be something more to the purpose than 
a mere pen-and-ink begging of pardon. Little 
farm-house rustics must not be allowed to in- 
sult the sons of gentlemen quite so cheaply as 
that. 

And with a cold, sardonic smile upon his 
face, Mr. Ballinger put the agreement into, the 
flame of the candle, holding it there until it 
was a heap of gray ash. 

So now that little matter was finally settled. 


CHAPTER VII. 

Toward the end of the summer months, any 
one going down Bishop’s Lane to Cruxborough 
Minster might have seen on the closely -shut- 
tered bow-window of the little gabled house at 
its farther end a printed notice, intimating that 
the premises would shortly be opened for the 
sale of plain and fancy needle- work. About 
the same time paper-capped workmen began to 
invade the privacy of the walled -in garden. 
Whitewashes and paperers took the queer old- 
fashioned rooms in hand, and the place was put 
into a complete state of repair ; more complete, 
perhaps, than would have been the case if old 
Dr. Boniface, who delighted to do a good turn 
for those who deserved it, had not spoken a 
word or two to the dean in Mrs. Monkeston’s 
behalf. 

Later on, wagon-loads of furniture — harvest 
wagons, bearing the now almost forgotten name 
of Ralph Monkeston, farmer, Willowmarshes — 
drew up alongside the Avail ; a stout, red-faced 


damsel, Avith broad shoulders and brawny arms, 
might have been seen careering hither and thith- 
er through the funny up-and-down little rooms, 
unrolling carpets, fitting furniture, putting up 
curtains and blinds, sorting crockery, and ar- 
ranging things generally into ship-shape. Later 
still, in the dusk of the autumn eA’ening, a tall, 
grave Avoman, dressed in widoAv’s Aveeds, Avith a 
crooked, broAvn-faced little girl on one side, and 
a stout, handsome boy on the other, opened the 
heavy old iron-studded door, and, going in first, 
turned to kiss the children as she welcomed 
them to their new home. And, just one week 
after that, the juvenile population of Bishop’s 
Lane gathered in little groups to stare at the 
shop which had, for the first time, unveiled its 
blushing front to public gaze. . 

It Avas a very pretty shop, and Mrs. Monkes- 
ton and Gurtha crossed the road many a time 
that day to see hoAv it looked from the oppo- 
site side. According to a suggestion from Dr. 
Boniface, part of the window was deA’oted to a 
collection of engravings of different parts of 
Cruxborough — for Bishop’s Lane formed the 
chief entrance to the Minster from the east 
end of the town, and a goodly amount of cus- 
tom might be picked up from chance trippers, 
avIio Avould be glad to carry aAvay some little 
memento of their visit to the old place. The 
rest of the windoAV Avas filled Avith embroidery, 
or materials for fancy Avork, and at the back 
of the shop were piles of ready-made linen, of 
which Mrs. Monkeston had been preparing a 
stock ever since she decided to settle in Crux- 
borough. On the whole, it was as tidy a little 
place as one might Avish to see, and with a cer- 
tain air of refinement about it, as though more 
than mere handicraft had been at work there. 

Dr. Boniface had kept his promise of trying 
to interest the dean in behalf of Roger. Some 
Aveeks before the Monkestons left WilloAvmarsh- 
cs, Mr. Grant, the Minster organist, Avho was 
a friend of the doctor, went over to the rectory, 
and Roger Avas sent for to sing to him. The 
lad acquitted himself so well — for he had really 
a superior, Avell-trained voice — that Mr. Grant 
put his name doAvn at once on the list of re- 
serve. His salary Avas not to commence until 
the time of his actual engagement in the choir, 
but he was to take his place among the super- 
numerary singers as soon as the family removed 
to Cruxborough ; and meamvhile he Avas to at- 
tend the choristers’ school, besides having the 
advantage of daily practice Avith them. 

Mr. Ballinger, too, came forward, with a gen- 
erosity Avorthy of himself. Just before the 
opening of that little shop under the Minster 
front, he had lost his office lad. In order, 
therefore, to save himself the expense of a suc- 
cessor to SAveep out the chambers or run er- 
rands, he proposed that Roger, noAV a brisk, 
bright, actiA r e lad, should go into the office by 
way of gaining an insight into the profession, 
and so be ready for any thing that might turn 
up. Cruxborough nodded its head approving- 
ly, and said how very kind Mr. Ballinger Avas to 


2G 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


do this. Not every man, it was quite sure, with 
sons of his own to advance in life, would have 
taken a stranger into his employ without either 
premium or recommendation ; and it hoped 
the fortunate youth would endeavor to prove 
his gratitude by a diligent performance of ev- 
ery duty required of him. 

Gurtha came with her mistress. Mrs. Monk- 
eston had intended to dismiss her, and take in 
her place a little girl, to train for kitchen-work ; 
for Gurtha was a first-rate dairy-maid, and 
could command much better wages in a farm- 
house than she was ever likely to have in that 
little shop at Cruxborough. But Gurtha, who 
was sound and faithful at heart, though some- 
what given to scolding, and not perhaps implic- 
itly to be trusted when there were no poplar- 
trees to keep her in check, utterly refused to 
take another situation. 

“Never heed the wage,” she said, in her 
rich, rough Yorkshire brogue* when Mrs. Monk- 
eston advised her to take service elsewhere — 
“never heed the wage. I’ve got clothes to 
my back as’ll stand me over two year or more ; 
and by that time the shop’ll have got agate of 
paying its way. I’m not going to better my- 
self by leavin’ you to do your own work ; so if 
vourself’s content, I am, and there’s an end 
on’t.” 

So Gurtha staid ; and helpful indeed Avere 
those strong arms, and that rough yet steady 
good-will in the new home. 

The shop prospered tolerably. Mrs. Ballin- 
ger and Matilda came, on its opening day, and 
spent a guinea in the purchase of ready-made 
linen ; but the lawyer’s wife very decidedly de- 
clined Mrs. Monkeston’s invitation to go through 
into the parlor behind the shop, and very short- 
ly after the invitation took her leave. Mrs. 
Balmain, too, came and bought a few yards of 
edging, which she asked to have sent down to 
her house by Mrs. Monkeston’s servant ; but 
she also declined the offer of a seat in the back 
parlor, and did not greatly encourage conver- 
sation, except so far as it related to business. 
Several of the ladies, too, who had helped them- 
selves so bountifully to the peaches and apricots 
of the farm-garden, and had sat down with such 
excellent appetites to delicious country teas in 
that snug room whose lattice-window looked 
riverward across the pleasant lawn, dropped in 
from time to time for lengths of embroidery or 
pennyworths of cotton, gave Mrs. Monkeston 
their very best wishes, and expressed loud 
praises of the comfortable little shop, which they 
hoped would prove an excellent speculation ; 
and they should have the greatest satisfaction 
in recommending it to their friends, for really 
the articles were so tasteful, and the linen so 
well made, and the prices so moderate, it was 
quite a pleasure to send customers to such a 
place. But nothing was said about asking the 
widow to come to see them, nor even the re- 
motest hint given about that early cup of tea 
which had been pressed upon her so often, and 
with such unlimited kindliness, when her shut- 


up life at the Willowmarshes farm made the 
invitation perfectly safe. 

Mrs. Monkeston, knowing little as yet of “so- 
ciety,” and judging others by herself, thought 
that these kind people, who had so often in for- 
mer times expressed their wish to see her, were 
waiting until she got comfortably settled ; per- 
haps at Christmas-time would ask the chil- 
dren for an evening’s quiet amusement, or sug- 
gest to her to bring some of that plain sewing 
which occupied all her leisure now, and sit by 
their cheerful fireside, where a little friendly 
chat, and perhaps a word or two of sympathy, 
would help her to do it with more spirit. 

So, by degrees, life shaped itself into some- 
thing like comfort at the little house in Bish- 
op’s Lane. Gurtha took the entire management 
of household affairs. Mrs. Monkeston sat be- 
hind the counter always, except when she was 
waiting upon customers, stitching away at the 
plain work, which she found pay as well as any 
thing else. While doing this, she was able to 
teach Jean, who sat in a quiet corner of the 
shop w r ith her slate and books. At night, after 
shutting-up time, they gathered round the fire 
in the little back. parlor, where Roger, when 
not running errands for Mr. Ballinger, had his 
school-work to prepare, and his thorough bass 
exercises to write out ; or the children would 
sing together from old church music, which 
Roger had to copy, or Jean helped him in his 
favorite amusement of cutting out pasteboard 
wheels, and making little orreries, Avith sealing- 
Avax balls for planets, after plans set forth in an 
old book of astronomical diagrams Avhicli Dr. 
Boniface had given him. Dr. Boniface seldom 
came over to Cruxborough Avithout looking in 
upon his friends in the little house at the east 
end : and seeing Roger’s taste for mechanical 
handiwork, brought him books sometimes on 
the subject, and helped him Avith his little con- 
trivances, and occasionally took him to an as- 
tronomical lecture at the Mechanics’ Institute ; 
so fostering the lad’s ingenious tendencitjs, and 
at any rate making for him a quiet little re- 
source of interest in a life Avhicli Avould else 
have been almost too full of dull, unboy-like 
labor. 

For Mr. Ballinger seemed determined that 
the authorized employer of idle hands should 
find no mischief for Roger’s to do. That mys- 
terious process of gaining an insight into busi- 
ness Avas being diligently carried on ; though 
Avhat insight into business could be gained by 
perpetual sweeping of offices, mending of fires, 
and running of errands Avas a problem w hich 
Roger could not clearly make out. But then, 
as Mr. Ballinger said to him one afternoon, 
AA r hen, coming in tired and Avet from his round 
of messages, he tramped up and down stairs to 
fill the office coal-pans, before going to after- 
noon service at the Minster, Avork Avas such a 
fine thing for a boy — there Avas nothing in the 
Avorld so good for a boy as plenty ofwmrk. If 
little Monkeston — this Avas the name by which 
Mr. Ballinger always addressed his cousin’s 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


27 


child— if little Monkeston would take the trou- 
ble to read that small volume of biographies of 
great men which had been presented to him on 
the twelfth anniversary of his birthday, he would 
find that all the celebrated characters immortal- 
ized in those pages had inaugurated their ca- 
reer by an apprenticeship — ifhe might so express 
it — to hard labor of some sort in the great work- 
shop of life. Life was a workshop, and those 
who went into it must make up their minds to 
work, if ever they meant to be masters. He 
had worked hard himself, if he might be per- 
mitted to refer to his own youth — here Mr. Bal- 
linger pulled up his collar, and looked pomp- 
ously over his spectacles at Roger, who was 
shoveling coal on the fire, and devising within 
himself how the sealing-wax moon in his little 
orrery at home might be made to incline prop- 
erly in its orbit — and rose majestically from 
his office-chair, and leaned his knuckles on the 
desk, and bent forward, as if addressing a com- 
pany of Blue-coat boys or ragged-school chil- 
dren, from that favorite vantage-ground of his, 
the Cruxborough Town-hall orchestra. lie had 
worked very hard himself, if, as he said, he 
might be permitted to refer to his own career, 
and see what it had done for him. Look at 
his offices, thronged with clerks, and crowded 
with clients; look at the manner in which he 
was enabled to bring up his family ; look at the 
home which he had provided for them; lopk 
at his position, though he would not be under- 
stood to refer to it in any thing like a boastful 
spirit, esteemed by his fellow-citizens, respect- 
ed, he might venture to say, by all classes of 
society ; and what, he would ask his dear young 
friends, what had been the beginning of all this 
prosperity ? Work— hard work ! And there- 
fore he would impress upon them that, if they 
wished to end where he had ended, they must 
begin where he began, and not shrink from the 
manly doing of their duty, distasteful though it 
might appear to the proud and aspiring instincts 
of youth. 

And here Mr. Ballinger subsided into his 
chair again, still looking pompously over his 
spectacles at Roger, who, standing helplessly 
there in the middle of the floor, coal-pan and 
shovel in hand, was supposed to represent in 
his small person an entire Blue-coat school. 
A pause folknved, during which Mr. Ballinger 
appeared to be listening to imaginary rounds 
of applause. Indeed, this was a private re- 
hearsal of the speech which he intended to 
make at a Cruxborough charity-school meeting 
some time during the following week; and at 
this point he was to refresh himself with a glass 
of water, by way of giving the audience time to 
express their feelings. 

Then, he continued, bearing down more es- 
pecially upon Roger’s own affairs, little Monk- 
eston must look at what was expected from 
him in that station of life to which it had pleased 
Providence to call him. He had a widowed 
mother, which was, under any circumstances, 
a great responsibility for an only son, but par- 


ticularly where the blessing of abundant tem- 
poral prosperity had been graciously withheld, 
doubtless for some wise purpose. His mother 
would naturally look to him to be the prop of 
her declining days, to supply to her the place 
of that natural protector, whose character and 
career, he was sorry to say, had not been such 
as to render them worthy of imitation by his 
survivors. And he had an afflicted sister. 

Roger winced as he thought of the quaint 
little brown face at home over which so seldom 
now the happy child-laugh passed — so seldom 
since Reginald Ballinger’s cruel taunt. 

An afflicted sister, Mr. Ballinger continued, 
whose claims upon him were of a peculiar na- 
ture, since it was by his own act — not inten- 
tional, of course, he would not for a moment 
be understood to insinuate that little Monkes- 
ton had any idea of the terrible consequences 
which would follow — but still, at the same 
time, it was by his own act that this most lam- 
entable affliction had been brought about, 
which rendered his sister incapable either of 
earning a livelihood for herself, or of looking 
forward with any hope to having it earned for 
her by a natural protector. She was, there- 
fore, he might say, laid, in a peculiar manner, 
upon her brother’s sympathy, and it would be 
his duty through life to make atonement, as far 
as he could, for the misery which had been 
produced by himself. 

As this slow, rolling avalanche of speech kept 
increasing to its final majestic bulk, the ex- 
pression on Roger’s face had passed from pain 
to vacant astonishment, and then into terror. 
What had he done ? What did Mr. Ballinger 
mean? All thought of the sealing-wax moon 
and pasteboard orbit which he and Jean had 
been puzzling over the night before was gone 
now, and only one thing had any clearness— 
namely, that his master was fastening down 
upon him the blame of that terrible misfortune 
whose bitterness, as his sister v/ould have to 
suffer it all through life, had only of late begun 
to unfold itself to him. Jean, whom he loved 
so much, even before Reginald’s taunt had 
crushed the childish mirth out of her, but 
whom ever since he had loved with a boyish 
agony of sorrowful compassion — what had he 
ever done to Jean but protect her weakness, 
and try to make the rough ways of life smooth 
for her weary little feet? 

“If you please, sir, I don’t know what you 
mean,” he said at last, a great sob choking his 
voice. 

Mr. Ballinger saw the state of the case at 
once, and rose to its solemnity. Here was a 
fine opportunity for that flow of exhortatory 
eloquence on which he so much prided himself, 
and which made him so popular on the plat- 
forms of Cruxborough. Little Monkeston’s 
mother, poor woman, through a mistaken fear 
of wounding his feelings, had evidently kept 
the truth from him ; but the lad must know’ it 
sooner or later — the sooner the better, perhaps. 
He, Mr. Ballinger, -was not the man to shrink 


28 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


from a painful duty. There was such a thing 
as sinful timidity in withholding from children 
the knowledge of their guilt, and its conse- 
quences. The lad was of an age now to know 
what he had done ; and if his mother shrank 
from giving him pain, there were others, fortu- 
nately, with a clearer sense of right who would 
supply her deficiency. 

Accordingly, Mr. Ballinger cleared his throat, 
and commenced in the swelling periods which 
were so dear to him, Roger trembling all the 
while with a cold, creeping horror. 

“ I assume, little Monkeston — that is to say, 
your behavior intimates that you have been 
kept in ignorance of a fact, the due explanation 
of which, had my advice been taken upon the 
subject, I should have counseled at a much 
earlier period of your existence. I have no 
doubt, young as you are, your memory extends 
to the time, some years distant now, when your 
unfortunate sister Jean was in possession of 
the usual facilities for locomotion, and the usu- 
al personal qualifications of children healthily 
born and brought up. Am I right in suppos- 
ing that you remember that time ?” 

Roger tried to speak, but no words came. 

“We will waive the point, as it is of com- 
paratively slight importance. At a very early 
period of her life, however, those powers of 
locomotion suffered a check, and those per- 
sonal qualifications became impaired by a slow 
process of decay, which has eventuated in her 
present condition of helplessness. In the ab- 
sence of any definite information conveyed to 
you by your parents on this subject, it now be- 
comes my duty to inform you that your sister’s 
affliction was caused by a blow which, in a 
moment, I will not say of anger, but probably 
of childish thoughtlessness or impatience, you 
inflicted upon her, causing her to fall from a. 
considerable height, and producing those in- 
juries which it is needless for me now to de- 
scribe, their nature being familiar, from the 
constant presence of them.” 

Dimly, as when people awaking remember 
a dream, which afterward comes back with the 
distinctness of actual vision, Roger seemed to 
see that mossy bank by the water-fall in the 
Willowmarshes garden, and Jean, a little dot 
of three years old, toddling along its brink; 
and then — but how or why he could not recall, 
she fell, and Gurtha had scolded him for let- 
ting her get her clothes covered with mud. 
And then, for a long time, they never played 
together in the garden again, and ever after 
that he was bidden to be so careful of her. But 
he only struggled after the dim remembrance ; 
it would not show him itself clearly. And Mr. 
Ballinger kept going on in that slow, pompous, 
measured tone. 

“ Not, as I repeated before, that you had 
any malicious intention, but the effect was 
the same — namely, that your sister sustained 
an injury resulting in a permanent affliction, 
which is to all her friends, as doubtless it will 
be to yourself when you are able to compre- 


hend its seriousness, a cause of deep and lasting 
grief. 

“I am glad,” Mr. Ballinger continued, see- 
ing the look of white horror on Roger’s face — 
“ I am glad that you receive this painful com- 
munication with a fitting sense of its serious- 
ness. I argue from such a condition of mind 
that you will not shrink from accepting the re- 
sponsibility which this by-gone act of childish 
folly has placed upon you, but will consider it 
the duty of your whole future life to repair, in 
such small measure as you can, the terrible 
consequences of your fault. To this end I in- 
culcate upon you diligent application to your 
present work — that perseverance which refuses 
neither labor nor drudgery, but cheerfully ac- 
cepts present toil as a means to future success. 
I will not further detain you, as I hear the 
Minster bells chiming, and the rules require 
punctuality in your duties there ; but I shall 
wish your attendance at the office this evening 
to execute some errands in the city.” 

And having thus acquitted himself of the 
painful duty which Mrs. Monkeston’s remiss- 
ness had forced upon him, Mr. Ballinger wiped 
his spectacles, and began to look through a 
few papers relative to old Hiram Armstrong’s 
affairs. 


CHAPTER VITI 

Roger went out into the dark. .The vain; 
was coming down in to 
— for it was midwinter now- 
his face. He ran wildly along, finding in the 
storm a kmd of relief to his pen 
and neither knowing nor ither he 

went, until, turning the corner into a narrow 
street in quite an opposite direction to the 
Minster, he stumbled against Dr. Boniface. 

“What! you here?” said the doctor, “and 
the Minster bells chiming this quarter of an 
hour past! Why, what on earth’s the matter?” 
he continued, looking into the lad’s face, pale, 
excited, tear-stained — “any thing gone amiss 
at home ? Jean ill ?” 

“No, no,” said the boy, wildly, Jean’s name 
rousing an agony of pain in his heart again — 
“ please, sir, it’s nothing — it’s nothing at all.” 

And snatching his hand out of the doctor’s, 
he rushed away at a more frantic pace than 
ever. 

Dr. Boniface looked after him. Something 
was wrong. He hoped the boy had not got 
into disgrace at the office. Mr. Ballinger was 
not a man to overlook any thing of that sort. 
It would go hard with Roger, very hard if he 
had done any thing to damage his reputation 
there. And yet what else, if all was well at 
home, could have sent him driving through the 
streets in that way, with such evident marks of 
distress and fear upon his face? The good 
doctor was very troubled about it, but he wise- 
ly kept his trouble to himself for a while. 

Roger, somewhat brought to his senses by 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


this encounter, hurried away to the Minster, 
reaching it just in time to put on his surplice 
and join the procession, which was already on 
its way to the choir. With mechanical correct- 
ness he went through his part in the chanting, 
though his young heart seemed almost burst- 
ing with this, its first great load of grief. To 
the end of his life Roger Monkeston never for- 
got that hour in Cruxborough Minster. It 
stood up like a great, dark, solemn pillar of 
remembrance between him and the boyhood 
which before it had been so bright and light- 
some. The whole place in that dim Decem- 
ber gloom seemed full to him of mysterious re- 
buke. The sculptured martyrs, standing with 
folded hands and flowing robes, in their cano- 
pied niches under the clear-story windows, look- 
ed upon him from under bent brows, with sad, 
majestic anger for the wrong that he had done. 
The sweet angel faces, which many and many 
a time from his place in the choir he had 
watched bending down from lofty carven capi- 
tals over the altar, as if to read its mysteries, 
wore now a stony aspect of horror and rebuke. 
From boss and corbel those weird, unearthly 
shapes which the old monks had chiseled seem- 
ed writhing toward him, mocking Jean’s de- 
form -- ’ ” ; to lose himself in 

the mi... x pit icing Jody was the wail of 
to the prayers, they 
v. . only fail cf her complainings; if he 
nil his : tv . v. .n little face, strange- 
!( f the leering figures 
>vi\ . f : . him : <e a nightmare, 

v Roger on vr it no longer. With 
a stifled ■ i misery, ue stole out from his 
place, threw off the surplice, which seemed all 
too white and fair for him who had done such 
grievous wrong, and then wandered out into the 
tempest again. There was a sort of relief in let- 
ting it spend itself upon him. It xvas almost like 
an atonement to Jean that the rain should be 
drenching him and the north wind drifting him 
before it, while she sat warmed and comforted 
by their mother’s side. And as he wandered 
aimlessly up and down the deserted streets, 
that past which Mr. Ballinger’s words had 
touched came back so clearly to him. He 
remembered so xvell playing with Jean on 
the mossy bank by the water-fall, giving her 
that little push which sent her rolling over the 
edge; her faint cry of fright, and then how 
quietly, how very quietly, she had lain among 
the grass and water-weed at the bottom. He 
had thought she could not be much hurt, she 
was so still. And ever since that things had 
been different. Their mother had been so 
careful — so tender over Jean. Even their fa- 
ther, who scarcely ever took any notice of them 
except to bid them get out of his way, would 
sometimes lift little Jean up and give her a 
kiss ; and Roger remembered how, seeing him 
do this, a pang of jealousy had once gone 
through him, and he turned coldly away from 
the child who seemed to be having more of 
love’s cherishing than himself. That thought 


29 

made the tears come back, and Roger could 
have cried out in his pain. 

Late, quite late, he came home. They had 
not missed him much, for Mr. Ballinger often 
kept him all the evening, taking messages. 
He crept quietly away to his room and went to 
bed ; and when Mrs. Monkeston came to say 
good-night to him, he hid his face, that she 
might think he slept. But there was no sleep 
for Roger that night. If a few moments of 
unconsciousness came, he started with a cry of 
terror. Stony faces, all of them like Jean’s, 
stared doxvn upon him ; grinning figures writhed 
.and twisted round him. With the dull gray 
light of the morning came shivering and pain. 
He tried to get up, but the room seemed to turn 
round with him. He could no longer think, 
he could no longer remember ; he could only 
lie still and suffer. 

No more singing in the Minster choir for 
many and many a long day after that ; no 
more feeding of office fires, nor running of er- 
rands, nor hearing of pompous exhortations 
from Mr. Ballinger. The white surplice was 
laid away ; so were the pasteboard wheels and 
diagrams, and the sealing-wax planets, which 
with such care and pains had been made at 
last to move properly in their orbits ; and Mrs. 
Monkeston, taking them out sometimes, and 
looking at them through blinding tears, won- 
dered if the boy would ever want them again. 

For it was fever — low, nervous fever — Mr. 
Balmain said, which had seized him ; and none 
could tell yet how it would fare with the poor 
lad, or which should have the victory in that 
battle which death and the strong young life 
were fighting so closely. And soon, from his 
ravings, Mrs. Monkeston learned all, learned 
who had told him oversoon the sad truth, 
which, when he was wise enough to know its 
meaning, she meant most lovingly to have 
taught him. 

“Jean! Jean!” he xvould cry out, when the 
fever was strong upon him, “ I didn’t do it on 
purpose ! I didn’t mean to push you over ! I 
couldn’t help it ! Don’t look at me, Mr. Bal- 
linger, in that way — I can’t bear it ! They are 
all pushing me, the stone figures ! I shall 
fall ! I can’t sing when they look at me like 
that ! Jean, tell them I didn’t do it on pur- 
pose.” And then the poor child would fancy 
he was in his place in the choir, and begin to 
chant the psalms in a sweet, sad voice that al- 
most broke his mother’s heart. 

No time now to wonder why the Cruxbor- 
ough people never came to see her, never asked 
her to go to their houses. For many days 
she never left Roger’s room. Gurtha and lit- 
tle Jean between them attended to the shop. 
Mrs. Bratchet, good soul ! came every alter- 
nate night to sit up with him — a service for 
which she xvould take neither thanks nor pay- 
ment, saying it xvas the Lord’s work, and would 
bring its own blessing xvith it. And to lighten 
the house-work, which pressed heavily upon 
Gurtha now, she took all the washing axvay to 


30 


TIIE BLUE RIBBON. 


her own little room in the college yard, and did 
it there, because, as she said, work was slack, 
and she had plenty of time ; and if Mrs. Monk- 
eston didn’t mind finding soap, she didn’t mind 
finding hands to use it. So she said, bringing 
back week after week her upheaped basket of 
snowy linen ; but she never told Gurtha, and 
she never told any one else, that many an hour 
of sleep had been knocked off her already 
shortened nights, to bring that little offering 
of service to her old mistress ; and perhaps the 
good woman herself did not know, nay, would 
not have believed, that those labor-roughened 
arms of hers, carrying her basket week by week 
to the old gabled house, were building up a re- 
membrance in heaven nobler than all the sub- 
scription lists in Cruxborough put together 
could raise. 

At last the wrestler Death was thrown. 
Once more Roger Monkeston, not proud and 
triumphant now, though, but trembling, for the 
fight had been very sore, stood over, the foe who 
had so nearly conquered him. Thanks to Mrs. 
Monkeston’s admirable nursing, his own care- 
ful watching of the case, of course, and the 
lad’s admirable constitution, Mr. Balmain said 
■ — also, perhaps, though Mr. Balmain did not 
say it, owing to the fact that God had some 
work yet for Roger Monkeston to do in the 
world — he won slowly back to life. After those 
weeks of slow pain and watching came the sweet 
dawnlight of returning health; and the glad- 
dest service love can ever do, that of leading up 
its own from the river’s brink into the fair fields 
of life again, was done in the little world-for- 
saken house in Bishop’s Lane. 

Not until one sunny spring morning, three 
months after the beginning of his illness, did 
Roger and Jean go forth, hand in hand, across 
the Close, and enter the old Minster at service- 
time. They sat in Jean’s favorite corner, away 
from comers and goers, in a niche where once, 
before Thomas Cromwell’s men deprived him 
of his office, a stone archbishop stood to bless 
the people. And there Roger, to whom both 
time and place brought back the great day of 
his pain, told Jean all about it. 

She only put her little brown hand into his, 
and looking into his face from the depths of 
those great wistful eyes, whiph already had the 
pathos of her lonely future pent up in them, 
said, 

“Mother told me, and I love you.” 

And it seemed to them, as the music gave 
its sweet Amen to her words, that they would 
belong to each other always. 


CHARTER IX. 

Roger’s illness did one good thing for him — 
it delivered him, for the present, at least, from 
the dreary tread-mill round of errand-running, 
office -sweeping, and coal -carrying, by which 
Mr. Ballinger kindly proposed to give him an 


insight into the profession. Mr. Balmain said 
the lad must have rest. He might still go to 
the chorister’s school in the morning, and do a 
little practicing, by way of keeping up his mu- 
sical education ; but, that done, all the rest of 
the day must be given to health. 

So there were fine times for Roger now — bet- 
ter, he thought, than if he had never been ill at 
all ; for the days, except that little bit of morn- 
ing school and the two services at the Minster, 
were one long, delightful holiday, in which not 
even the semblance of work needed to be done. 
Three months of rest — that was what Mr. Bal- 
main prescribed, before even half days were to 
begin at the office again ; and, most fortunate- 
ly for Roger, the three months fell to him just 
at the beginning of Dr. Boniface’s term of res- 
idence in the canon’s lodge, scarce a stone’s- 
throw away from the little shop under the east 
front of the Minster. 

The good old man had felt a pang go 
through his heart when, not long after meeting 
Roger on that cold December night, he learned 
the real cause of the lad’s wild, excited man- 
ner. He felt then as if he could scarcely do 
enough to atone for the suspicion which, though 
told to no one else, had really crossed his mind. 
Constantly during the first weeks of that long, 
dreary fever-time, he used to come over from 
his rectory at the Willowmarshes with some 
delicacy for the invalid, or some more substan- 
tial gift in kind, which, under pretext of sup- 
plying Roger’s wants, he left in the widow’s 
hands, knowing well enough how tight the gnLp 
of poverty must sometimes be now in that home ; 
and if Mrs. Boniface’s numerous brood of grand- 
children had been quadrupeds, or even centi- 
pedes, they could scarecly have required such 
constant relays of little socks and boots as the 
kind-hearted old lady was continually ordering 
from Bishop’s Lane. 

Then, later on in the spring, when they came 
into residence, there was an unfailing supply of 
books for Roger from the canon’s library — books 
after the lad’s own heart: “Ferguson’s Life,” 
that joy of joys to a mechanical boy, with its 
quaint old story of difficulties overcome and 
prejudices beaten down ; of nights spent out in 
the dew-spangled fields, making maps of the 
stars with beads and string. Oh ! how Roger 
longed to have a night out himself on the 
greensward of the Minster close, only Mrs. 
Monkeston would never give in to it ; and that 
watch, that delightful old wooden watch, which 
the stupid farmer trod upon and smashed ; and 
the three-wheeled orrery, which Roger had al- 
ready copied many and many a time ; and the 
slow, steady climbing up to knowledge and 
fame of the rude, rough-handed shepherd’s boy. 
And books full of experiments in mechanics, 
and instructions how to make dials, and pic- 
tures of all sorts of them whiclf could be copied 
on card-board, with gnomons cut out and stuck 
on, so as to tell the right time — at least within 
| half an hour or so — when taken out on sunny 
days, and placed at a proper angle in the little 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


31 


bit of grass-plot in front of the house. What 
joy filled Roger’s heart one morning, when, af- 
ter a week’s plodding over a dial from “Fer- 
guson’s Mechanical Exercises,” copied upon the 
top of a pasteboard box out of the shop, and 
furnished with an elaborately-carved gnomon, 
he took it out into the garden, set it by the 
proper directions, saw the shadow fall upon the 
half-way mark between eleven and twelve, and 
then, running round to the great clock above 
the west door of the Minster, found that that 
was indeed the right time ! No prince could 
have been happier than Roger then. 

And later still, when the summer days began 
to give him back a little strength, and half-time 
at the office was talked of again, Roger used to 
saunter down the streets, looking at the opti- 
cians’ shop windows — those delightful windows, 
where, strangely enough, as it seemed to him, 
people scarcely ever staid ; where there were 
microscopes and telescopes, and celestial globes 
with the constellations marked out upon them, 
and spirit-levels, and barometers, and the real, 
actual instruments themselves, of which he had 
only seen the pictures in Dr. Boniface’s books. 
And sometimes, when he was strong enough to 
go so far, he would get quite away to the Wools- 
thorpe works, close to Hiram Armstrong’s old 
house at Wastewood — the wonderful Wools- 
thorpe works, named, as Dr. Boniface had told 
him, after the birthplace of the great philoso- 
pher, Sir Isaac Newton, and whose owner, Mat- 
thow. Arncliffe, had, by his own honest effort, 
raised himself from a raw little country boy 
to be one of the foremost scientific men in En- 
gland ; a fellow of the Royal Society, and a mem- 
ber of nearly all the great European institutes. 

Roger did not know much about Royal Soci- 
eties and European institutes, but he had made 
a little orrery with three wheels, and construct- 
ed a dial that would tell the time ; and he knew 
something about how telescopes were made, for 
he had tried to put one together out of Fergu- 
son’s book ; and often, in chance times which 
lie could spare from that everlasting errand-go- 
ing and coal-carrying, he had run off to the 
great astronomical instrument-works, and look- 
ed in through the closed iron gates, and seen 
the long lines of workshops, and the wheels and 
bands of the steam-lathes moving so regularly 
to and fro, and a tall, tent-like shed in a corner 
of the works, under which — but he had never 
seen it except once, when it was being freshly 
adjusted — was the monster telescope, better 
even, and more powerful, Dr. Boniface told 
him, than Lord Rosse’s, which had been or- 
dered for the observatory at Greenwich, and 
which had already taken a whole year in mak- 
ing. With keen, almost awful interest, he had 
heard Dr. Boniface talk about this telescope, 
its great glasses, not yet ground and polished, 
but worth so many hundreds of pounds, and al- 
ways kept in an inner room, locked and guard- 
ed ; its wonderful wheel-work, the perfect ac- 
curacy and delicacy of its huge machinery, un- 
til it seemed to him like some mysterious living 


creature ; and the tent which hid it from him 
was like the vesture of an actual human spirit, 
through which he longed to pierce, and touch 
the inner life. 

Ah ! if he could be even an errand lad in 
those great Woolsthorpe works, and sometimes 
go near the black tent, and peep at the strange 
creature within, and live his life among the 
lathes and telescopes and chronometers and 
wonderful instruments which were slowly grow- 
ing to their perfection under the long lines of 
workshops, how happy he should be ! He used 
to watch the men coming out at noon ; not all 
men, though — some of them boys, not so much 
older than himself ; and he longed to put on 
one of their smutty blouses, instead of his own 
neat, dapper little round jacket, and work at 
the lathes, and go in and out among the ma- 
chinery, and learn all about the engine, and find 
out how the things were put together. But no. 
He must go on getting an insight into the pro- 
fession, for it was such a fine opening for him. 
Every one said how good Mr. Ballinger had 
been to take him in, and what a man he might 
make himself, if he would only stick to work. 
He might even, with industry, and twenty or 
thirty years of application, become a second 
Mr. Ballinger, and what more could he wish 
than that? Then there was Jean; Jean, who 
would never have a home of her own, or any 
one to work for her except himself; Jean, whose 
life he had so sorely spoiled, for whose sake he 
must toil now, and give himself to the work, 
their mother said, which would soonest win 
bread for her. Could he pick and choose for 
himself, while she sat still at home and starved? 

And Roger used to turn away back again to 
the coal-carrying and the errand-running, for 
which, by-and-bv, when he was better up to his 
work, Mr. Ballinger had promised to give him 
half a crown a week. 

It was one of the sunshiny afternoons, just 
before the blessed three months of rest would 
come to an end, that the boy stood with his 
hands in his pockets, and his face — somewhat 
pinched yet, andholkrw-cheeked — pressed close- 
ly against the iron gates of the Woolsthorpe 
works. So closely, indeed, that he did not see 
a little gentleman with gray whiskers stand be- 
hind him for some moments ; nor was he con- 
scious of any thing save awe for that wonderful 
telescope, slowly growing, like a living creature, 
under its tent, until a hand was laid on his 
shoulder, and a kindly voice said, 

“Now, my little man, if you would just be 
so good as to step on one side.” 

Roger started, as if he had been caught in 
some dishonest trick, and his face reddened 
quite up to the roots of his curly hair, as the 
gentleman looked at him with a half-recogniz- 
ing expression. 

“I’ve seen you before somewhere,” he said, 
as he held one half of the iron gate open (a 
workman coming out just then touched his cap 
respectfully), “only I can’t remember where it 
was.” 


32 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


“Please, sir,” and Roger flashed a still deep- 
er scarlet, “you came past the gate when Mas- 
ter Reginald Ballinger and I were fighting in 
the orchard.” 

“Ah! so I did; and you put him down — 
put him down into the nettles,” said the little 
gentleman, bringing his hand on Roger’s shoul- 
der with a thump. ‘ ‘ I remember it now as well 
as can be. And, if I’m not mistaken, I’ve seen 
you a good many times looking in at these gates. 
But not lately — not lately, have I?” 

“No, sir, not lately. I’ve been ill a long 
time ; and I’m getting better now, before I go 
to work again. I orily used to come, sir, be- 
cause — because — ” 

“Nay, nay, it’s all right,” said the gentle- 
man, seeing that Roger fidgeted and looked un- 
comfortable. “You are welcome to look in 
through the gates as much as ever you like ; 
only it isn’t every boy that cares to stand star- 
ing in at a row of workshops. Would you like 
to go in now and have a look round ?” 

And Matthew Arncliffe — for the little gen- 
tleman with the gray whiskers was the owner of 
the Woolsthorpe works, Fellow of the Royal 
Society, and Corresponding Member of the In- 
stitute of France — held the door open for him. 

“ Oh ! please, sir,” said Roger, just stepping 
in far enough to see where a bit of the curtain 
had been folded away, revealing the glistening 
brass-work of the telescope-stand — “ oh ! please, 
sir.” And then, his face suddenly changing to 
blank disappointment, he went on, “But I’m 
going to the Minster. I’m a Minster boy, sir, 
and the bell’s been chiming ever so long; I 
must be there before it gives over.” 

“All right,” said the little man. “ Keep to 
your duty; there’s never any harm in doing 
that. You’ll be past, may be, some other time. 
Don’t know what that is, I suppose, eh?” he 
added, pointing to the great tent in the corner. 

“ Oh yes, sir, I do ; Dr. Boniface has told 
me all about it. It’s the great achromatic tel- 
escope, that’s going to be sent to the Observa- 
tory at Greenwich ; and it shows you the cra- 
ters in the moon, doesn’t it, sir ?” 

“ Craters in the moon ! What do you know 
about craters in the moon ?” 

But there was a keen, quick look in Mr. Arn- 
cliffe’s face as he waited for Roger’s reply. 

“I don’t know any thing, sir, only Dr. Boni- 
face told me about it; and he lent me ‘Fer- 
guson’s Astronom} r ,’ and told me how I could 
make a telescope — a very little one ; and he 
gave me the two glasses, and I made a tube out 
of card-board, and I cut a cotton-reel into slices 
for the eye-pieces, and I fixed it up ; and Dr. 
Boniface said it was all real, only I couldn’t see 
very much with it.” 

“Then you’ve made a telescope? So, so. 
And have you made any thing else ?” 

“ Yes, sir, ’’ said Roger, brightening up, as the 
sharp yet kiudly face smiled upon him. “I 
tried to copy an orrery out of Ferguson’s book, 
and the earth goes round very nicely indeed, 
only the moon sticks fast in its orbit some- ! 


times. I have to push it rather often to make 
it go on.” 

“Most likely,” said the little man ; “ but if 
it stirs at all, that’s a great deal to say for it. 
And now, let us see. What do you say you do 
when you’re all tight and strong ?” 

“ Please, sir, I go to Mr. Ballinger’s office. 
He said he would take me in for nothing, and 
I sweep out and go errands ; and then, sir, I’m 
a Minster boy, and I get my schooling that 
way.” 

“Oh, going to make a lawyer of you, eh? 
Prayers twice a day, and school and practice, 
and errand-boy at Mr. Ballinger’s into the bar- 
gain, and you find time in between to make or- 
reries and telescopes out of ‘Ferguson’s As- 
tronomy,’ eh ?” 

And the little man looked more keenly than 
ever into Roger’s face, while the boy, blushing 
and uncomfortable, fumbled at the corner of 
his shabby jacket. 

“Well, well, time you were off now, I sup- 
pose; but some day, before you start work 
again, you may come here, if you like, and I'll 
take you round, and may be we shall find some- 
thing more handy for making a telescope than 
mother's cotton reels. Let me see, come to- 
morrow, if you like — day after — any day — I’m 
always here. Ask for Mr. Arncliffe — say I 
told you to come.” 

“ Oh, sir !” and the big tears came into 
Roger’s eyes. 

“Never mind — never mind — don’t bother 
me,” said the gentleman, dashing hastily away 
into a little office on the right hand of the gate, 
leaving Roger to find his way out as he could. 
But as he unlocked an inner door, and began 
carefully to examine two large disks of glass, 
which, swathed in the finest cotton wool, w ere 
reared against the wall, he muttered to him- 
self, 

“ Make that lad a lawyer ! humph ! rubbish !” 


CHAPTER X. 

Next day, long before the stroke of three, 
the hour appointed by Mr. Arncliffe, Roger 
was waiting at the gates of his paradise. How 
he envied the workmen ! — those fine, keen, in- 
telligent-looking men, some of them in such 
greasy, blackened blouses, who kept going in 
and out. How happy they must be ! Roger 
wandered they were not always singing and 
whistling, as he was sure he should be, if he 
had to work on such enchanted ground. And 
as for wages, why, he would rather toil there 
all his life for nothing, than make a fortune 
among the tape and sealing-wax and parch- 
ment of Mr. Ballinger’s office. If only — and 
he thought of Jean, little Jean, whose stay, 
and shelter, and protection were to be his trust, 
even as the need of them had been his fault. 

“Ready!” said the master, wheeling down 
upon him with a cheery smile and a hearty 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


33 


shake of the hand, as the clock over the gates 
struck the hour of three. “Punctual as a 
chronometer ! That’s right ; nothing like keep- 
ing time to the minute. Come along,” and he 
led the way across the court-yard. “I think 
we’ll go right away first “to the heart and brain 
of the whole concern.” 

“ That’s you, isn’t it, sir ?” said Roger, look- 
ing shyly up into the sharp, shrewd face, with 
its keen gray eyes and deep lines of thought. 

“Well, no, I won’t exactly say that.” But 
the little man looked amused as he took Roger 
along to an engine-shed, where a huge iron 
monster was puffing and laboring away, pour- 
ing out of its great strong valves the current of 
life which kept the pulses of the system round 
it working with clock-like regularity. 

“There, that’s what I call the heart. You 
may call me the brain, if you like — I’ve no ob- 
jection ; but it’s little work I could do here 
without this tough old fellow to help me.” 

Mr. Arncliffe stood apart, and closely watch- 
ed the lad as he walked round and round, ex- 
amining the works, looking eagerly in, tracing 
the machinery — how one part moved another, 
and all worked toward one common point. It 
was no stupid wonder which shone in Roger’s 
eyes, though he seemed almost confounded by 
the vastness of the force thus compressed. 

“Ready for something else, eh?” he said at 
last, smiling, when the lad, having satisfied his 
curiosity, came up to him with a look of dumb 
* mier’m his face. “Shall we go and look 
at the hands, now Ave’ve got a notion of the 
heart?” 

And then followed for Roger, the little chor- 
ister boy of Cruxborough Minster, the greatest 
treat he had ever had in his life, for Mr. Arn- 
cliffe, beginning at the very lowest, took him 
through all the workshops, from the moulding- 
shops and casting-sheds, where the rough brass 
was turned out of its sandy form, right on to 
the finishing-room, where, bright and smooth 
as the m&st polished mirror, it formed part of 
some delicate astronomical instrument. He 
saw the process, too, by which the wheels were 
cut, the number of the teeth calculated — a 
difficulty which had puzzled poor Roger great- 
ly, for how to make the same number of teeth 
in each different sized wheel of his pasteboard 
orrery, had cost him many a wakeful night. 
And then, after showing him the steam-lathes 
at work, and the putting together of the various 
instruments, Mr. Arncliffe took him into a 
room where there was a real orrery, giving the 
itiotions of all the planets, together with their 
I different eclipses, occultations, and conjunctions, 

which might be calculated for any number of 
years. Roger understood about this better than 
about the steam-engine, for he had mentally 
constructed the whole thing so many times from 
the plates and descriptions given in Ferguson’s 
book, that he seemed quite on familiar ground 
while examining the wheels which produced 
the different movements. 

Mr. Arncliffe apparently took but little no- 
3 


ticc of him, just letting him go round and take 
his own notes of things, answering a question 
now and then, briefly and clearly ; but all the 
time he was observing the lad’s intelligence, 
watching as keenly as possible the expres- 
sion of his face, which showed just how much 
he understood of each thing. He had con- 
ducted many a lord and duke over those works 
with less pleasure than he felt now in watch- 
ing Roger Monkeston examine with such ea- 
ger, boy-like interest the various instruments; 
ay, and many a lord or duke too, with a whole 
course of university education at his back, had 
manifested far less insight, and entered with far 
less understanding into the explanations given, 
than did this little school-boy, whose life seemed 
to be spent between psalm-chanting and office- 
sweeping. 

Last of all, Mr. Arncliffe took his little friend 
across to the tent, under which the great tel- 
escope stood. Involuntarily, as they entered, 
Roger took off his cap and stood bare-headed, 
as if in the presence of some one nobler than 
himself. Mr. Arncliffe saw the act, and it touch- 
ed him deeply, though he took no notice of it, 
only set it down along with the other things by 
which he had been judging of Roger’s character. 
Something was to be hoped for, thought the 
shrewd man of science, from the little lad who 
took off his hat to a telescope, seeing in it a 
sort of incarnation of the highest type of in- 
tellect. Such reverence would not stop there, 
he thought — it would climb on and on, until it 
learned to understand what now it only dimly 
and dumbly wondered at. Roger never spoke 
as they walked round and round the large in- 
strument ; he scarcely looked at it closely, as 
he had looked at the other things. It seemed 
enough to be there, in its presence, holding a 
kind of silent communion with it. At last, 
with a quiet “Thank you, sir,” he came out. 

“Well, now I think you’ve seen enough for 
once. Stay, though, I said I would look out 
for something better than your mother’s cotton 
reels to make an eye-piece for that telescope 
of yours.” And Mr. Arncliffe led the way into 
a great lumber-room, where bits of brass-work 
and remains of instruments of all sorts were 
scattered about. “Here’s just the thing you 
want,” and he picked out a piece of tubing; 
“ and perhaps some of these little globes would 
be useful to you — they must have belonged to 
an orrery once ; but we don’t make that sort 
of thing now, and so you may have them if you 
like.” 

Roger’s eyes sparkled as Mr. Arncliffe filled 
his pockets for him with little globes of differ- 
ent sizes, representing the different planets, and 
showed him how to fix each on its axis ; and 
then he gave him some wheels and a brass dial- 
plate, with nothing wanting to its completion 
but the gnomon. Truly, this was a day much 
to be remembered. 

“ And now, good-bye,” said the good-heart- 
ed man, as he shook hands heartily with the 
bright-eyed boy. “ Some of these days I shall 


34 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


look in upon you, and see that three-wheeled 
orrery of yours. Little house, isn’t it, just un- 
der the Minster ? Yes, I know it is as well as 
can be ; queer little place with two gables that 
look as if they were winking at you. Very 
comfortable, though, I dare say. And so moth- 
er lives there, does she? and that sister Jean 
you were fighting about when you put Master 
Reginald into the nettles — ha ! ha ! Wonder 
how he liked it ? Good-bye, good-bye. No, 
no, I don’t want any of your thanks. I tell 
you, you may come and see the works whenever 
you like ; and if you want a bit of telescope 
tube or a planet any time, just tell me, and 
we’ll make it all right.” 

But again,' as he went into the inner office 
and prepared to make his calculations for the 
grinding of the great telescope glass, Mr. Arn- 
clifFe said, 

“Make that lad a lawyer! Humph! rub- 
bish ! I’ll sec old Ballinger at Jericho first!” 

Before many days had passed, he made his 
appearance in the little back-parlor behind the 
shop. He insisted on seeing all Roger’s me- 
chanical performances, nodded his head with 
great satisfaction over the three- wheeled orrery, 
listened gravely as the boy, utterly unconscious 
of any thing extraordinary in his attainments, 
talked about the problems he had been puzzling 
out from “Howe on the Globes,” and the dials 
he had been constructing from the “Mechanical 
Exercises ” which Dr. Boniface had lent him. 
He expressed no surprise, paid no compliments 
— only said he might come to the works when- 
ever he liked, and promised to lend him books 
which would be more useful, perhaps, than those 
of Ferguson. 

But when, at the bidding of the Minster bells, 
Roger had disappeared to his place in the 
choir, Mr. Arncliffe had a long talk with his 
mother about him, and asked if her plans for 
his future employment were quite fixed ^-be- 
cause, if not, he should like to suggest his de- 
voting himself a little more to the studies for 
which he seemed to have such a natural -apti- 
tude. 

Mrs. Monkeston, like most other practical 
domestic women, was astonished to find that 
this perpetual wheel-cutting and orrery-mak- 
ing, this chipping about with empty cotton-reels, 
and planning out of dials on the tops of her 
pasteboard boxes, indicated any thing beyond 
a taste for experiment which might stand in 
the way of her son’s success in life. But she 
had common sense enough to see the wisdom 
of Mr. Arncliffc’s arguments when he showed 
her how unadvisable it would be to tie the lad 
down to work for which the bent of his mind 
so completely unfitted him. He told her he 
had been thinking the matter over since he had 
taken Roger round the works, and found with 
what intelligence he had observed the different 
processes ; and he had come now to propose 
taking the boy into the workshops at once, if 
that could be done without involving any thing 


unhandsome to Mr. Ballinger. He said he 
had no doubt, from what Roger had made out 
already by his own industry, and in spite of 
many obstacles, that if he had a fair chance 
given him he would make a good scientific 
and practical man. Therefore, he proposed 
putting him into the very lowest department 
firsthand thence letting him work up step bv 
step to the finest departments of mathematical 
instrument making — that, of course, depending 
upon whether his talent and application would 
carry him so far. Until thus stopped, he should • 
go right on. He added that Mrs. Monkeston 
need not trouble herself about a premium — he 
would take the lad's love of science in place 
of that ; and as soon as his labor began to be 
worth any thing he should be paid for it. 

Mrs. Monkeston knew the value of such an 
offer. Dr. Boniface had said to her more than 
once what a splendid thing it would be for 
Roger if, with his fondness for mechanical and 
astronomical pursuits, he could be got into the 
celebrated Woolsthorpe works. But then it 
was so difficult, he said, to get a lad in there, 
except simply as an apprentice to the brass- 
working department, in which he w r ould never 
be more than a common journeyman. As for 
entering him as a private pupil, that was quite 
out of the question, it being considered a favor 
even for wealthy and highly-educated boys to 
be taken into the mathematical department, 
and there trained under the master’s own di- 
rection. Yet now Mr. Arncliffe had math, 
offer himself, laid open to Roger the very path 
he would have chosen, and promised that noth- 
ing but his own failure should stop him from 
following it out to the end. She was trying to 
express her thanks, but the little man stopped 
her in his brusque, decided way. 

“Nothing of the sort, madam — nothing of 
the sort. I — in fact, I’m just pleasing myself, 
and there’s an end of the whole matter. If 
you are willing to give me my own way, I don’t 
want any of your thanks. Excuse me, I know 
that’s a queer way of putting it ; but you will 
understand what I mean. I always think it’s 
an unfair thing to pretend to be doing a lad a 
kindness when all the while you're only pleas- 
ing yourself.” 

“ But without any premium, Mr. Arncliffe ?” 
said the widow, thinking how only a few days 
before Mr. Ballinger had sent for her to his 
office, and told her by how many installments, 
paid down at stated periods, he would receive 
the sum of one hundred pounds, which he 
thought was the lowest possible figure at which 
he could engage to initiate Roger into the pro- 
fession, and even then only in a second-hand, 
pupil-teacher sort of fashion, much sweeping 
and errand running being still required to sup- 
plement the deficiency — “without any pre- 
mium?” 

“Well, well,” said Mr. Arncliffe, with that 
bluff, blundering awkwardness which always 
came over him when people began to thank 
him for any thing he was doing, “if you’ll 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 




just hand the lad over to me, and let me make 
w hat I can of him, or at any rate put him in 
the way of making what he can for himself, I 
don’t think there’ll be much of a balance of 
thanks to strike between us. So you’d best say 
nothing more about it. I’ll look in at Ballin- 
ger’s some of these days, and hear what lie’s 
got to say about it. No agreement with him 
yet, is there, or any thing of that kind ?” 

Mrs. Monkeston was thankful now to say 
there was not. A few days ago she would 
have been so thankful to say there was. 

“All right ; then it’s plain sailing. Good- 
night, little Brownie,” he continued, nodding to 
Jean, who had been casting shy glances upon 
him from behind the shelter of her mother’s 
chair. “ I think, by the look of that forehead 
of yours, we ought to be able to make some- 
thing of you, too ; only I suppose mother will 
want to keep you quiet at home. Bless your 
little pale face !” 

And in his sudden, abrupt way he turned 
round and laid his hand for a moment, with a 
gentle, caressing touch, on the child’s soft curls. 
Then he whisked out of the house, and away 
to his two meanly-furnished little rooms at the 
Woolsthorpe works, where he began to put his 
things together for a journey to London on 
the morrow. For it was the annual dinner of 
the Royal Society, and among all the people 
who gathered there, peers and princes, besides 
those grander kings whom art or science crotvns, 
/Done Ayould be received with more honor than 
Matthew Arncliffe, once the untutored country 
lad, but now one of the foremost men in En- 
gland’s book of greatness. 


CHAPTER XL 

Or course Mr. Ballinger ltad a great deal to 
say on the subject when, according to promise, 
Mr. Arncliffe went over to speak to him about 
the proposed change in Roger Monkeston’s life. 
It was scarcely to be expected that he should 
submit to the loss of his quick-footed errand- 
boy without some little effort to express to Mr. 
Arncliffe the extent of the sacrifice which he 
was making. 

In fact, he thought he might venture to say 
that, setting aside the unbounded respect he 
had always felt for the master of the Wools- 
thorpe works as a man of science, and one of 
the most distinguished ornaments of his native 
country, nothing but a truly disinterested re- 
gard for the widow and the fatherless — here 
Mr. Ballinger assumed the platform style, and 
beamed over his office desk upon an imaginary 
audience — nothing, he might say, but that re- 
gard would have induced him to forego what 
he might perhaps be justified in considering as 
his lawful claim upon the services of young 
Monkeston. 

“ Oh, then there was an agreement,” sug- 
gested Mr. Arncliffe, curtly. “Didn’t know 


any thing about it — sure I didn’t know any 
thing about it. Mrs. Monkeston gave me to 
understand none had been made.” 

Mr. Ballinger begged to be excused. He 
had not, if Mr. Arncliffe would pardon him for 
the correction — he had not stated that there 
was any agreement, save that which he might 
say a gentleman had a right to expect when, 
after many acts of kindness and much expend- 
iture of valuable professional time, he had re- 
duced the affairs of the late lamented Mr. 
Monkeston to something like order, and, in- 
stead of accepting any pecuniary remuneration 
for that expenditure, had still further added to 
the obligation by taking the son into his office 
for the purpose of training him to the profes- 
sion. Mr, Ballinger thought he might be par- 
doned for suggesting that such a course of ac- 
tion constituted a claim perhaps as binding as 
a written agreement, which he was bound to 
say certainly did not exist. 

“Were you going to take the lad, and stick 
to him till you’d made a man of him ?” asked 
Mr. Arncliffe, jerking out each word with a 
short, quick emphasis of irritability, for Mr. 
Ballinger’s paragraphs were a nuisance. 

Mr. Ballinger declined to waste his respect- 
ed friend’s valuable time by entering into any 
detailed statements with regard to his inten- 
tions. Suffice it to say that he had cherished 
plans of his own which might — he would not 
of course bind himself to say that they would — 
but which might have eventuated favorably for 
him when, after a few years of application to 
the lower duties of his office, he had begun to 
gain an insight into business. But he would 
let that pass. It was not his place to enlarge 
upon what he meant ‘to have done, any more 
than upon the sacrifices which, out of respect 
to Mr. Arncliffe, he had felt himself compelled 
to make. He would only say it was a disap- 
pointment to him — a slight disappointment, 
not to put it more strongly than that; but 
young Monkeston had his best wishes, his very 
best wishes. He was sure nothing would give 
him greater pleasure than to advance in every 
possible way the youth’s prospects in life. 
Furthermore, and in consideration of the cir- 
cumstances, he would waive the ceremony of a 
formal notice, and allow the youth to quit his 
present sphere of labor at the expiration of 
three months — a relinquishment of obvious 
rights, which he thought Mr. Arncliffe would 
receive in the spirit in which it was offered. 

Mr. Arncliffe thought that, where there was 
no agreement and no payment, there was scarce- 
ly need of a three months’ notice. 

“ I want the lad now,” he said, gruffly. 
“ He’s been feeding your fires and running 
your errands long enough.” 

Mr. Ballinger declined to enter into the 
technicalities of the law on that point. Mr. 
Arncliffe would perhaps pardon him for say- 
ing that it was sufficient to state the fact, with- 
out going at length into the arguments which 
might be adduced in its defense. However, as 


36 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


Mr. Arncliffe had doubtless acquainted himself 
with the capabilities of the youth, and was con- 
vinced of the desirability of speedily securing 
his services, he would not selfishly insist on his 
own rights. lie was proud to say that he had 
never been a man selfishly to insist upon his 
own rights. He had always allowed private 
considerations to fall into the background 
where a benevolent object was to be obtained. 
He should, therefore, be willing — nay, he 
thought he might go still further, and add that 
he should have pleasure, since Mr. Arncliffe 
wished it, in at once relinquishing his claims 
upon young Monkeston’s services. It was not 
what every man in his position and under sim- 
ilar circumstances would have done, and he 
trusted Mr. Arncliffe would pardon him for 
suggesting that it was a sacrifice ; but if the 
welfare of one who already owed him much 
gratitude required it, he was ready to put aside 
his own personal feelings, and thus add one 
more to the many benefits which the family of 
his deceased relative had received from him. 
Having made these remarks, he hoped Mr. 
Arncliffe would think he had explained him- 
self sufficiently on the subject. 

Most likely Mr. Arncliffe did think so — most 
likely he had thought so for a long time. He 
had listened, on the whole, very patiently, only 
with an occasional twinkle of humor among 
the crow’s-feet at the corners of his little gray 
eyes while Mr. Ballinger enlarged upon his 
intentions and sacrifices ; and once or twice he 
had felt very much inclined to call “hear, 
hear!” when, after having toiled to the summit 
of some long paragraph, Mr. Ballinger made a 
slight pause and reached out his hand in search 
of a possible glass of water, which was supposed 
to be placed before the chairman for use while 
the audience was applauding. Perhaps, joined 
to that splendid power of scientific investiga- 
tion which made Matthew Arncliffe one of the 
great men of his time, was just so much quiet 
insight into character as made him value Mr. 
Ballinger’s intentions and sacrifices at their 
right estimate. However that might be, lie 
accepted them both without further ado, and 
went straight from the office to the little shop 
in Bishop’s Lane to tell Mrs. Monkeston that 
all was arranged satisfactorily. 

Just one month from that time Roger Monk- 
eston, aged thirteen, put on for the first time 
his fustian suit, and took his place in the en- 
gine-sheds of the Woolsthorpe works. With 
that a glad new era in his life began. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Ten years passed away. Quiet, uneventful 
years, judging events by those stormy waves 
of joy and sorrow which break upon the shore 
of life, and, retreating, leave them strewn with 
blackened drift-wood from many a wrecked 
hope, or spangled with rare and delicate frag- 


ments of deep-sea blossom and rainbow-colored 
shells, cast up to tell of the treasures of some 
far-off and yet unknown world of beauty. 

Cruxborough, at least that respectable por- 
tion of it represented by the professional and 
retired classes, went on its way as usual, well- 
dressed, well-behaved, exercising a most wise 
doctrine of selection in the matter of its ac- 
quaintances, specially holding itself aloof from 
any thing like familiar intercourse with people 
who were foolish enough or unfortunate enough 
to keep shops for the sale of plain and fancy 
needle-work. For though the place was be- 
nevolent and beneficent in the extreme — no 
cathedral town in England more so — it prefer- 
red to practice its good qualities on people who 
were decidedly of the poorer classes — people 
whose misfortunes placed them quite far away 
on the wrong side of that cord which society 
draws so scrupulously between the reserved 
and back seats of its great public entertain- 
ments. Cruxborough would get up no end of 
bazars, and give the proceeds of them to ragged 
little street- Arabs, brown -stuff charity chil- 
dren, and Church of England orphans, who, in 
return for the same, sang touching hymns in 
public, invoking the blessing of Heaven upon 
their benefactors. But that other sort of char- 
ity which shakes hands with dubiouslv destitute 
people — widows wh 

spectable as itself, s v ho ear even 

yet remember sitt 1 
which invites them w th<m stops 

to speak to them 

afraid of asking tl as o\; familiar 

friends — that sort 

Cruxborough, a indeed, it 

was wisely swep vay altogether, 

along with other ..lore palpable and material 
nuisances which the City Commissioners took 
under their own control. “ Here are our guin- 
eas arid our half-sovereigns,” said Cruxborough 
select. “ Take them, ye presidents and secre- 
taries of benevolent institutions, clothe squalid 
poverty with cheap flannel petticoats, teach it 
its Church catechism, and feed it with the 
wholesomest of oatmeal-porridge that can be 
contracted for at a profit ; but for the love of 
respectability, for the credit of our position, and 
the sake of the grown-up daughters who are 
crying to us for a suitable settlement in life, do 
not ask us to give struggling worth the entree 
into our parlors, or smirch our visiting lists 
with the names of widows who keep ready- 
made linen-shops.” 

And who shall blame little Cruxborough for 
this wise doctrine of selection? 

So that Mrs. Monkeston had plenty of cus- 
tomers, but no callers — none, at least, of a sort 
that was likely to raise her social position in 
the place. Mr. Arncliffe certainly did look in 
very frequently, but that was mere kindness, 
as Mrs. Balmain said — mere kindness ; and of 
course he never asked them to his own house, 
being an old bachelor, and living, when he was 
not up in London among the scientific societies, 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


37 


in a couple of plainly-furnished rooms at the 1 
Woolsthorpe works, with an antiquated female 
to look after him. Nothing at all, that sort of 
acquaintance, to be proud of. And Dr. Boni- 
face used to look in occasionally, she thought 
— kindness again, nothing but kindness. Ev- 
ery one knew that Dr. Boniface was a man who 
would drink a cup of tea with his own washer- 
woman if he thought it would please the poor 
thing. She had heard, too, but most likely it 
was only report, that Mr. Grant, the Minster 
organist, had taken his wife across to hear Jean 
Monkeston play, and that they had her over 
in an evening sometimes at their own house. 
Well, possibly ; the girl did play most beauti- 
fully, and had a great deal of talent in other 
ways. There must be talent in the family 
somewhere — most likely on Mrs. Monkeston’s 
side. Mrs. Monkeston was a capable woman, 
there was no denying that ; and if she had been 
content to let her own relations manage for her, 
put Jean into an orphanage, and keep the boy 
at a respectable solicitor’s office, while she got 
out as companion to a lady, why, nobody would 
have had any thing to find fault with. But 
she had always been a woman who would have 
her own way ; and of course people who would 
have their own way must pay for it. 

And that young man — that Roger? Had 
M '' U1 r .-eon him ■ uelv ? It was Mrs. 
Ba*r '■ who thus talke. -.he affairs of the 

r while spending 

&v .. ‘ hours v.-iiii tiv: - ’ o r’s wife. Had 

It was really 

qi disgraceful tc meet •• going backward 

is, just like an or- 

■ dinary mechanic, with gnjare- spotted blouse, 
and not . of white liu-'-.n showing about 
him, and such hands! Mr. Balmain said he 
had gone into the surgery once to take a poor 
man who had been hurt in the engine -shed, 
and really you might have thought he was ap- 
prenticed to a blacksmith. It was disgraceful, 
simply disgraceful. What Mrs. Monkeston 
could have been thinking about when she let 
him be taken out of a respectable office to go 
into that sort of thing she could not imagine. 
And his manners, too, so off-hand and independ- 
ent. Not a bit of consciousness of his posi- 
tion. He would raise his dirty cap to you in 
the street, if he happened to catch your eye, 
with as much self-possession as if he had been 
the finest gentleman. Mrs. Balmain could not 
endure that sort of thing. Could Mrs. Bal- 
linger endure it ? 

Mrs. Ballinger could not endure it either. 
It was disgusting. And after the manner in 
Avhich Mrs. Monkeston had behaved to her 
husband, too ! But her daughter Matilda had 
been obliged to cut him completely, and so had 
Reginald. They said it really compromised 
them to have to move to him in the street. 

“ And I supported them in it, Mrs. Balmain 
— I did indeed,” said Mrs. Ballinger, drawing 
herself up with matronly dignity, and looking 
round complacently upon the splendid dining- 


j room of that new mansion on the Portman 
Road. “ I don’t approve of having my chil- 
dren’s feelings wounded in that way. I think 
position is a thing you can not be too careful 
about.” 

Mrs. Balmain thought Mrs. Ballinger was 
quite right to support them in it. For her 
own part, she had dropped the acquaintance 
some time ago — indeed, ever since her daugh- 
ters were old enough to go into society. She 
thought it was so very important to keep young 
people select. She had nothing against young 
Monkeston in a moral point of view. He 
might be all right — she hoped he was ; and if 
he had been wise enough to have kept in Mr. 
Ballinger’s office, where by this time he would 
have had quite an insight into the profession, 
she should not at all have minded asking him 
in now and then for an evening — a young man 
was useful sometimes to fill up a gap, espe- 
cially in a place like Cruxborough, where male 
society was scarce. But, as things were now, 
she would sooner let Edie and Gracie practice 
their part-songs without a bass voice at all 
than ask a young man out of an engine-shed 
to join them. 

So would Mrs. Ballinger. And now that 
the shop was succeeding, there was no need 
for even patronage. That carved woodwork 
of Jean Monkeston’s seemed to be quite a hit. 
Very pretty, certainly; and it was a great 
mercy the poor girl was able to make a little 
money for herself so. It would keep her from 
being such a helpless burden on her mother and 
brother. Mrs. Ballinger must say, though, she 
had never gone to the shop except out of a 
sense of duty. Mrs. Monkeston, after the first 
few months, seemed so very distant, quite above 
her position — vexed, perhaps, that they were 
not called upon ; and if that coarse servant- 
girl, Gurtha, came in to wait, she grinned at 
you as if she had known you all her life, just 
because she happened to bo at the Willow- 
marshes when Mrs. Monkeston’s friends went 
out to visit her in the time of her prosperity, 
poor thing! In fact, it was — 

Mrs. Ballinger stooped down with a look of 
extreme disgust to shake off an earwig which 
had had the presumption to crawl out of some 
flowers upon her elegant cambric costume. 
That was/just what it was. 

But Mrs. Ballinger floated on the very 
smoothest waters of society now. Her hus- 
band was one of the most prosperous men in 
Cruxborough. Those bank shares had come 
just at the right time. As old Hiram Arm- 
j strong said, little made much, and much made 
; more. The number of his shares had increased 
tenfold as opportunities came for buying oth- 
ers, until now the interest of them alone — Mar- 
! tinet’s bank being the best investment in the 
place — brought him in a handsome income, in- 
dependent of the profits of his profession. A 
few people, envious souls, who could not bear 
to see Mrs. Ballinger driving into town in that 
elegant little pony-carriage, or Miss Matilda 


38 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


smiling supremely in laces and cameos at the 
fashionable district church, talked wisely about 
the imprudence of putting too many eggs into 
one basket. Five-and-twenty per cent, was 
rather a high rate of interest, they thought, to 
last forever. If they were in Mr. Ballinger’s 
shoes, they would sell out while shares were at 
such a splendid premium. If a panic did come 
— and nobody could tell whether it might or 
might not — things would begin to look awk- 
ward. What would become, then, they should 
like to know, of that sumptuously-furnished 
mansion on the Portman Road,, and the ele- 
gant pony-carriage, and the silk and the satin, 
and the scarlet and the velvet, in which some 
'people they could mention seemed to put their 
trust? But most likely Mr. Ballinger knew 
what he was about. It was not their place to 
talk. 

Most likely Mr. Ballinger did know what he 
was about, too, when he began to launch out 
to such an extent as caused his wife and fam- 
ily to ride proudly enough upon the topmost 
wave of Cruxborough society. And if he was, 
perhaps, living just a little beyond his means, 
and if he did feel slightly uncomfortable when 
the bills came in for those dinners and balls 
and evening parties which Mrs. Ballinger in- 
sisted upon giving, still, now was not the time 
to retrench. He must keep up his position a 
year or two longer, at any rate. For Mr. 
Stanley Armstrong, old Hiram’s nephew, who 
had come into all the property, had returned 
to England, bringing, in addition to his uncle’s 
thousands, a snug independence of his own, 
accumulated in the colonies ; and he had pull- 
ed down the old place at Wastewood, and built 
a splendid new mansion, in which he had late- 
ly taken up his residence ; and a pleasant ac- 
quaintance, a very pleasant acquaintance, had 
sprang up between him and the Ballingers ; and 
he seemed, according to present appearances, 
not ill disposed toward Matilda, for whom her 
parents could wish no loftier destiny than that 
she , should take possession of Wastewood as 
Mrs. Stanley Armstrong. To end this, there- 
fore, it would be expedient to keep up appear- 
ances a little longer ; and, to the same end, it 
was equally expedient that the Ballinger visit- 
ing list should not be choked with people who 
kept shops, and allowed their sons t^go about 
the streets like blacksmiths’ apprentices. 

So that things looked very dark for the 
Monkestons. Indeed, it was wonderful how 
thej 7 managed to exist at all under such a cloud 
of social deprecation, still more how they could 
look so bright and comfortable when Dr. Boni- 
face or Mr. Arncliffe — out of pure kindness — 
looked in upon them. The shop, too, that bete 
noir of Cruxborough respectability, had begun 
to . put on a different character. The plain 
linen had retired quite into the background, 
and the pasteboard boxes containing materi- 
als for ladies’ fancy work had been pushed al- 
most entirely aside, to make room for the dain- 
tiest little carved wood crosses, brackets, pa- 


per-knives, and pen-trays -which, tastefully dis- 
posed among the engravings, gave the window 
quite an artistic appearance. These things 
were the work of Jean Monkeston, who had 
developed an aptitude for design and execution 
almost as rare as her brother’s mechanical abil- 
ity. That love of ecclesiastical art •which in 
her childhood manifested itself in the shaping 
of her “ bolonge ” into Gothic arches and foli- 
ated tracery, had blossomed out of late years 
into skill which promised fair to afford her the 
means of earning her own living. Perhaps it 
might be the continual presence and compan- 
ionship of the grand old Minster, with its won- 
derful wealth and variety of ornament, which 
had fostered this taste in the mind of the girl, 
or perhaps it was her natural love of form and 
beauty, forever denied expression in her own 
person, which thus struggled up and found for 
itself an outlet in this artistic direction ; but, 
at any rate, her labors were appreciated, for 
the fretwork corner of Mrs. Monkeston’s win- 
dow was seldom without admirers, and Jean’s 
spare time was fully occupied in replacing the 
gaps which customers made among her pretty 
collection. 

Jean was a girl of nineteen now — nay, a 
woman. For, knowing none of the rosy dawn- 
light which comes with brightening maiden- 
hood, and never having felt the sweet conscious- 
ness of power to charm by the magic of her 
beauty or tire melody of her graceful presence, 
Jean Monkeston had passed at once fro %v > llui 
shy, quiet, observant child to the more quiet 
and observant woman, self-helpful, self-deny- 
ing. Not for her was there any fair landscape 
of hope or promise which the morning prime 
of youth might reveal to her more blessed sis- 
ters ; not for her was there any sweet incense 
of flattery or admiration ; not for her beauty’s 
magic crystal, which, flashing upon the dazzled 
eyes of men, should bring them to her side, 
and keep them there beneath the happy despot- 
ism of love. For her there was only the safe 
shadow, the plain, straight, level road of duty, 
the constant cutting down and rooting up of 
those vain longings which could but grow into 
bitterness and disappointment, until at last, 
their very springs of life destroyed, she might 
rest and be quiet for the remainder of the way. 
Jean did her work, and she had her reward. 
As the years went on, they brought her friends, 
the companionship of sweet and noble thoughts, 
the quiet sense of duty done ; they gave her at 
last the speech of art for the expression of that 
beauty which stirred so strongly within her. 
Through long, long hours, when neither strength 
nor will served her for any thing else, she used 
to sit alone in Cruxborough Minster, and listen 
to the music of the organ, and watch the morn- 
ing sunlight carry down mosaic work of color — 
purple, gold, and crimson — through the clear- 
story windows to trace it on the marble pave- 
ment beneath. And she read the thoughts of 
the old monks and sculptors, graven forever in 
that boundless "wealth of device which cluster- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


39 


ed round every arch and column and window 
of the temple they had built. She looked at 
the saints in the pictured windows, until each 
face seemed to be as the face of a friend bent 
lovingly upon her to bid her be of good cour- 
age. And ever as she sat there alone, apart, 
companionless, sometimes in the sunny morn- 
ing time, sometimes in the gray stillness of win- 
ter twilight, listening to the chanted music, a 
strange new language began to speak itself to 
her, as from the human souls who, centuries 
ago, had lived their life there, and wrought for 
God’s glory, and labored to cover their sins with 
this cunning broidery-work of stone. Then came 
other speech, chance sentences dropping into her 
soul as from some great poem whose meaning 
she could not yet understand, a word here 
and a word there; and she listened, the brown- 
faced little hunchback, as she sat there alone, 
looking forth with such wistful, earnest gaze 
into her cathedral world. Only listened at first, 
and then in feeble, faltering speech tried to an- 
swer ; answered sometimes in music, sometimes 
in artistic form, giving utterance, as best she 
could; to the thoughts which were evoked in 
her own soul by the poetry of Nature and of 
Art. Until at last the Spirit of Beauty — the 
glorious Queen of Fairyland, came down and 
dwelt within the patient, obedient little heart 
which had waited for her so reverently ; and 
then every tone of music and every form of 
leaf and blossom and every glory of color, shin- 
ing down from storied windows, became to Jean 
Monkeston a minister of joy ; and her life put 
on thankfulness and peace, and for her there 
was no more night. 

Then, in the pleasant winter evenings, Rog- 
er came home from his work, and doffed the 
blouse which parted him and polite society, and 
joined his mother and sister in that cozy lit- 
tle parlor behind the shop, and pored over the 
dialing diagrams or the problems which Mr. 
Arncliflfe set him ; or he amused himself with 
making telescopes and orreries, while Jean 
played to him, and Mrs. Monkeston, the grave, 
rigid look upon her face almost gone now, sat 
in her easy-chair sewing. Sometimes Mr. Arn- 
cliflfe brought in the London papers, and told 
them what was going on in the great world of 
science, or described in his quaint, simple, half- 
comical way his meetings with the famous 
European savants, Roger’s bright manly face 
meanwhile firing with ambition as he thought 
that he, too, might one day find his place among 
such men. 

So that really, after all, it was not perhaps 
of such very vital importance to them that Mrs. 
Ballinger had found herself compelled to drop 
those Monkestons. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

And now the Festival was drawing near — 
that glorious spring-tide of excitement, which 
once in every three years rolled up and flooded 


the high and dry old city of Cruxborough. 
Once only within the memory of the oldest in- 
habitant had that ancient and highly respecta- 
ble place allowed itself to be stirred by any oth- 
er visitation from its wonted aspect of serene 
repose, and that was when, some fifteen or 
twenty years before, the British Association for 
the Advancement of Science had held its meet- 
ings there ; a memorable time, for bedrooms 
were let. at a guinea a night, and several wash- 
er-women retired flrom business almost imme- 
diately after on the enormous profits they had 
made. 

But the visit of the British Association, though 
of course an immense honor to the city, and an 
event greatly to be remembered by the worthy 
mayor, who had given a splendid banquet on 
the occasion, was not of a nature to rouse much 
enthusiasm among the ordinary sort of people. 
Intellectual men with huge bald foreheads 
and long gray beards, German professors with 
guide-books sticking out of their pockets, rud- 
dy-faced, broad-shouldered Edinburgh philoso- 
phers rambling abstractedly down the streets 
and poking their umbrellas into the faces of 
unwary passers-by, were all very well in their 
way, and doubtless very profitable to the hotel 
keepers, but they only influenced — except with 
the aforementioned umbrellas — the educated 
classes. The masses stared at them with ig- 
norant wonder, and felt a sense of relief when 
they were gone. The Festival, on the contra- 
ry, was a treat for every one. Whatever dif- 
ference of opinion there might be as to the 
propriety of turning the Minster into a temple 
of fashion, and cramming that glorious old nave 
with a medley of artificial flowers, streamers, 
feathers, and gewgaws, gaudy enough to make 
the sculptured saints in the triforium turn their 
heads away for very shame, Cruxborough at 
Festival times was a sight to do one’s heart 
good. Banners floated from every window, 
flags streamed from the church towers, crowds 
of people in gala costume thronged the city 
from all parts, carriages of the county families 
filled the close, lovely women in raiment of pur- 
ple and crimson streamed through that grand 
western entrance into the Minster, whose bells 
meanwhile rang out a merry peal to give them 
welcome. All Cruxborough, from the bishop 
in his palace to the dingiest little dirt-pie maker 
in his gutter, waxed happy and enthusiastic in 
Festival times. The city gave itself over to 
holiday-making, and one great cry of mirth and 
feasting overpowered for the time all lesser 
sounds. 

Already the Cruxborough Harmonic Society, 
under the conductorship of Mr. Grant, the Min- 
ster organist, had been for some months dili- 
gently practicing the oratorio choruses in which 
it would have to take part. Roger Monkeston, 
who was now one of the tenor song-men in the 
Minster choir, was going to his work an hour 
earlier every morning, to give himself more 
time for practice. The music of some of the 
oratorios had so taken possession of him that 


40 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


often, as he worked at his steam-lathe in the 
telescope-room, he would involuntarily break 
out into some snatch of melody, or even sing to 
himself whole pages of the tenor solos, with the 
steady monotonous working to and fro of the 
lathe band as a conductor’s baton. The tele- 
scope-room, where he worked now, adjoined one 
of the lacquering shops, in which a number of 
young women were employed. Roger’s busi- 
ness rarely took him into this room, though it 
was separated from his only by a thin wooden 
partition, so thin that he could hear the girls 
sometimes laughing and chatting over their 
work. Strange sound it seemed to him, who 
heard so little laughter in that quiet old house 
under the east front of the Minster. Jean’s 
merriment, when it did bubble up and run over, 
was so different from this — a low musical rip- 
ple, full of quiet content ; and others than hers, 
save this, he had scarcely ever heard. Roger 
used to wonder to himself sometimes what oth- 
er girls were like, and whether he should ever 
be rich enough and well-dressed enough to go 
into society where he might meet them with- 
out being snubbed or haughtily passed by. 
And perhaps — but there was Jean. His life 
must be given to her. 

But it so chanced one afternoon as, after his 
fashion, he was talking to himself in music while 
shaping the brass-work of a telescope, a sweet 
treble voice on the other side of the partition 
began the same air. Hearing it, Roger fell into 
a second, and so the two went on together to 
the end. Roger was called away then to a 
distant part of the works, and heard no more 
that day of his companion singer. But next 
morning, coming to his work at the same place, 
he began to sing the tenor part of the duet from 
the “Creation,” “Graceful Consort,” and at 
the end of it the same clear soprano which he 
had heard the day before took up the air, and 
with a slightly foreign accent sang it through. 
When his part began again she still sustained 
hers quite correctly, finishing with a soft di- 
minuendo, clear, fine, subtle as a violin note. 

Some girl belonging to the Cruxborough 
Harmonic Society, most likely. Mr. Grant had 
some very good voices among his choir, and 
they were practicing so industriously now for the 
Festival. The choruses from the “ Creation,” 
too, were just being done, which made it more 
likely that she might have taken up some of 
the other music of the oratorio. Roger might 
easily have made some excuse for going into 
the lacquering-room to find out who sat at the 
bench next to the partition which divided it 
from his shop, but the thought never occurred 
to him. As yet he was more interested in the 
song than in the singer, and while one was so 
sweet, he cared not very much what manner of 
form the other bore. Besides, only a day or 
two after that, Mr. Arncliffe sent for him and 
gave him some problems to work out which 
kept him in the office until they were done ; and 
as Roger was generally a whole man to one thing 
at a time, the mathematics had the best of it. 


But some weeks after, he was coming down 
a long corridor into which that belonging to 
the lacquering-room led, and far off he heard 
a clear voice caroling out the “ Graceful Con- 
sort” solo. Roger joined in with his second, 
while yet the singer was unseen, and not until 
he reached the corridor where the two ways 
met did a laughing girl-face look up into his. 
Suddenly her song stopped. A smile more 
glorious still flashed over the red lips, and 
meeting his glance with one innocent, fearless, 
straightforward, she said, slowly and carefully, 
as if the sentence took some trouble to put to- 
gether, 

“What, then? It is you who do sing.” 

So saying she passed him by, and Roger felt 
as if a burst of sunshine had suddenly gone out. 
Before he had time to reply, she was far away, 
singing like a sky-lark as she went. 

That was Roger’s introduction to Gretchen 
Muller, a lacquering girl, who had lately come 
to the Woolsthorpe works. Certainly the cere- 
mony might have been more formal ; perhaps 
it ought to have been so, if Gretchen had been 
a proper-minded young woman and Roger an 
equally proper-minded young man. Perhaps 
Gretchen ought to have shut her lips, and cast 
down those sunny blue eyes of hers, and walk- 
ed demurely by when she found herself face to 
face with a strange workman ; and Roger, re- 
membering that his grandfather had been a 
wealthy farmer, and that his own social posi- 
tion, though somewhat unsatisfactory at pres- 
ent, might be said to lean to respectability’s 
side, ought to have started, said, “I beg your 
pardon,” and taken care never to repeat the 
encounter. But, then, if people always did 
what they ought to do, how few stories would 
ever be written ! 

Right or wrong, Roger sang many a sweet 
song at his bench after that — not out of the 
“ Creation ” at all, though, and always the car- 
oling voice replied, sometimes in an English 
ballad, sometimes in a tender little German 
song, whose words he could not understand, 
but whose thought, if it was like the music, 
must have been bright and delicate as a dew- 
drop. A new, strange sort of shyness, which 
he could not understand, kept him from making 
any excuse now for going into the lacquering- 
room, so he did not see the girl again until af- 
ter many days of this pleasant singing talk, and 
then they met by chance, as the works were clos- 
ing at six o’clock. She was crossing the court- 
yard with a dark-faced, oddly-dressed woman, 
who was also employed in the lacquering-rooms. 
Roger thought she looked prettier than ever, 
with a hood of coarse blue woolen stuff tied over 
her golden curls, and cloak of the same folded 
carelessly round her ; more modest and maid- 
enly she could not look, spite of the clear, fear- 
less, blue-eyed glance, and the bright, surprised 
laugh with which she met him. 

But when the dark-faced woman saw her pret- 
ty companion smile into the eyes of the hand- 
some young workman, she drew closer to her, 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


41 


took her by the arm — almost fiercely, Roger 
thought — and led her determinately away. 

Roger followed them at a little distance. They 
walked together down the High Street, past the 
City Hall, where the woman stopped for a mo- 
ment to look at the great Festival bills, which 
were already beginning to make their appear- 
ance there, and down a narrow street or two to 
the entrance of the college yard, where Gret- 
chen was dropped. 

To Roger’s great satisfaction she walked 
straight across the yard to Mrs. Bratchet’s 
rooms at the farthest corner, opened the door 
without knocking, and went in. Through the 
uncurtained window he could sec her, by the 
flickering firelight, take off her hood and cloak, 
shake back her ruffled hair, which shone like 
dusky gold in the little room, and then, with 
careless, weary grace throw herself down upon 
the estimable washer-woman’s tidy, check-cov- 
ered sofa. 

She was all right, then. Poor and simple 
though she might be, she must be good and 
pure, or she would not be at home in a house 
like that. Mrs. Bratchet, who seemed to have 
been having a spell of idleness in the twilight, 
bustled up, stirred the fire into a brighter blaze, 
and drew the curtain across the window; while 
Roger turned home to apply himself as best he 
might to those terribly stiff dialing problems 
which Mr. Arncliffe so often gave him now to 
solve. 

But there was no dialing for him that night. 
One face — the rosy, smiling face of the lacquer- 
ing girl — flashed out upon him through all the 
parabolic or hyperbolic lines which he vainly 
endeavored to describe. One voice — her voice, 
sweet as the ripple of a brook in summer-time — 
would keep singing on to him, as in a low, half- 
audible whisper he pondered over his abstruse 
calculations. At last he gave it up. 

“ Oh, Jean, play to me!” 

Jean, sitting there carving a bracket in Goth- 
ic work, looked up in astonishment. She was 
always as quiet as a mouse while her brother 
sat at the table with those great sheets of fig- 
ures before him. She knew he required such 
perfect silence. A chance remark, a careless 
question, would spoil all his calculations, and 
send him back wearied to the beginning of the 
long train of thought again. And he had been 
at work such a little time, too, to-night. 

“ 1 can’t do it, Jean. It’s all got into a mud- 
dle. You must play me straight again with one 
of Beethoven’s slow movements. These both- 
ering problems seem to get tvorse and worse.” 

Jean played, and Roger stretched himself 
out on the hearth-rug, his hands clasped under 
his head, a happy smile coming and going upon 
his face as he turned it away into the shadow. 
And by-and-by his thoughts changed to dreams, 
and the dreams were all of Gretchcn Muller. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

That was Mrs. Bratchet’s night for bringing 
home the washing, and she seldom brought it 
home without coming into that little room be- 
hind the shop, and having a few minutes’ chat 
with Mrs. Monkeston. Mrs. Bratchet was a 
joined member of the Primitives, and had just 
persuaded Gurtha to become a joined member 
too, so that there was now a fresh bond of union 
between her and her old friend of the farm 
kitchen. 

What a warm, sweet light of home and peace 
there was in that old parlor as Mrs. Bratchet, 
her honest face beaming with a light as warm 
and sweet, came courtesying into it. Court- 
esying very low, too, for the college yard wash- 
er-woman had a keen scent for “ quality,” and 
could discern it quickly under whatever cover 
of humble surroundings it might have crept for 
shelter; much more quickly than Mrs. Ballinger 
or Mrs. Balmain, with all their advantages of 
birth and education. 

“But they’re as blind as moles, is the Crux- 
borough folks,” she would say to Gurtha some- 
times, when the two worthy fellow -members 
were holding a private band meeting over the 
kitchen fire ; “ they can’t see a bit o’ worth 
nowhere without they’ve a golden candle to 
light ’em to it, and, law bless you 1 when they’ve 
got sight of the candle, they don’t care for 
nought else. If the missus, bless her ! would 
set ’em down on satin and velvet, and feed ’em 
with the flesh-pots of Egypt, they’d find out she 
was quality quick enough, let ’em alone for 
that.” 

“Ay,” growled honest Gurtha, “a golden 
candle gives a good light. There’s nought 
like it if you want to see your way plain through 
Cruxborough.” 

Jean ceased her playing as Mrs. Bratchet 
came in, and went to her own place by her 
mother’s side. Mrs. Monkeston was knitting 
in the twilight. No rest for her in shine or 
shadow yet. But her worn, stately face was 
full of peace now, and the grave, dark eyes had 
a look of satisfied quiet, after the long toil of 
a life that had once had sorer need of rest. 
And Roger — how handsome the young fellow 
looked, lying there on the hearth-rug, the fire- 
light flashing upon his black curls and richly- 
colored face, albeit the hands still clasped un- 
der his head were not of the whitest ! Indeed, 
any thing but that, as Mrs. Ballinger said. No 
wonder she had been obliged to drop the owner 
of them. 

Having made her courtesy and received her 
money, Mrs. Bratchet began to rub her hands, 
her usual manner of intimating that she should 
have no objection to a little conversation. 
Mrs. Monkeston understood, and began by a 
few approving remarks on the getting -up of 
the linen. 

“Yes, ma’am.” And Mrs. Bratchet, seeing 
that the way was epen, subsided into a chair 
close to the door, with a view to greater com-* 


42 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


fort in speech. “ I don’t say but what they’re 
a good sample, though them wristbands of Mr. 
Roger’s has took a deal of getting clean. It’s 
the grease, you see, as sets in ’em so, while, as 
you may say, it wants a miracle to whiten ’em. 
I’m sure, ma’am, I was a-tellin’ Gurtlia, only a 
bit since, when she come in, and I was agate 
of ’em, I got my sins rubbed away with a vast 
less rubbing nor what it takes me to get the 
dirt out o’ them there wristbands. But, you 
see, it was faith did it then, ma’am, and it isn’t 
faith as ’lido it for the wristbands — only works, 
as you may say.” 

“Together with a diligent use of the out- 
ward means of soap and soda,” suggested 
Jean. 

“Why, yes, miss; and I put ’em through it 
well, I did. I never spare a bit o’ soap when 
it’s for Master Roger; and then those wrist- 
bands is fit for a prince. I couldn’t have 
done no more for ’em if they’d been to go to 
the Festival in. I lay, sir, you’ll be getting 
ready for the Festival by this. They allers 
look to the Minster singers to hold ’em up.” 

“Yes,” said Roger, looking dreamily across 
to the corner where Mrs. Bratchet sat, square, 

. brisk, and upright, as was her fashion. “ I ex- 
pect we shall have to sing in the choruses. It’s 
the first Festival for me, you know, since I was 
a little boy-singer. Are you going, Mrs. Brat- 
chet ?” 

“Me going, Master Roger? I should like 
to see myself among all them fine folks. I 
haven’t clothes to fit Cruxborough Festival, nor 
ever had, and them choruses is overmuch for 
me. I’ve heard ’em at Christmas-time i’ the 
Minster, and they make me while I don’t know 
whether I’m standing on my head or my heels. 
No, Master Roger, I’ll wait, please the Lord, 
while I get a front -seat ticket for the great 
Festival up above, and then won’t I sing as 
loud as any of ’em ? Ay, and I will that ! Bless 
you, I shall never stop, once I get set agate.” 

“ Nay, Mrs. Bratchet, but if you mean to 
have a front seat you must sit still and listen. 
They don’t do any singing there. It’s only 
members of the choir that sing.” 

“That’s a true word you’ve spoken, Master 
Roger, though you thought you’d trip me up 
with it. You were allers such a one to argy. 
It’ll be poplar-trees and shadders with you to 
the end of the chapter, I reckon, same as Gur- 
tha never could abide. Yes, it’s only the mem- 
bers as has a chance to sing, and, bless the 
Lord, I’m a member. I’ve been in that choir 
this many a year past, and so I’m right for the 
great Festival, after all, and nothing to pay 
neither, for the choir goes in free, don’t they, 
Master Roger ? It’s without money and with- 
out price, as the blessed Scripter says. Halle- 
lujah ! Praise the Lord !” 

And Mrs. Bratchet’s honest old face seemed 
to send out quite a beam of sunshine from that 
shady corner. 

“You’re in a rejoicing frame to-night,” said 
Jean. 


“Why, yes, miss, I don’t ever reckon to be 
aught else, let alone wet weather, when the 
damp gets into the house and draws the starch 
out o’ the fine things, so as you can’t iron ’em 
stiff. There’s nothing pulls me down from 
Pisgah’s top like having to puj ’em twice 
through ; it keeps you back with your work so, 
and they’re nought to look at when you’ve done 
’em. But, as I was agoin’ to say, ma’am, when 
I come in, I don’t know but what I shall give 
up a good bit o’ the washin’ this back end. I’ve 
took a lodger to board and do for, as nice a 
young woman, ma’am, as you need wish to set 
eyes on, and it’s rather more nor what is con- 
venient having ’em both ; but she don’t belong 
to these parts, and she didn’t seem to have no 
one, as you may say, to look to, and I thought 
may be that was the way the Lord would have 
me do a fresh bit o’ work for him !” 

Roger rolled lazily over, with his face in the 
shadow again. 

“But how came, you to hear of her,” said 
Mrs. Monkeston, “ if she does not belong to 
these parts ? I don’t think we get many foreign- 
ers into Cruxborough.” 

“It was a woman as comes to help me 
sometimes when I’m throng, told me, ma’am. 

A queer woman, and I’ve never been able to 
square her up — no, ma’am, that I haven’t, for 
as often as I’ve tried. She works three days 
a week at Mr. Arncliffe’s works, ma’am ; and 
that’s how she come to know the young woman, 
for she works there, too, in the lacquering „ 
place, along with a lot more ; and Patch says 
to me, ‘Mrs. Bratchet,’ says she, ‘you talk a 
deal about serving the Lord, and I think it ’ml 
be a good turn for him if you took that young 
girl, as she wants a decent lodging just now.’ 
And she brought her to me right away, and we 
settled it, and I don’t know but what it’s a good 
bargain for us both. Says she to me, Patch 
did, ‘ You take care on her, you do, for little 
earnings and good looks is a rough road.’ And 
so it is, ma’am, no doubt, though I never got 
but the half of it myself, and that’s the little 
earnings. And I can’t tell what Patch may be 
to most, ma’am, but she’s been a good friend 
to the girl. I reckon she’s seen a little of the 
rough road herself may be, for there’s a desper- 
ate way about her, and she looks you through 
and through with such a pair of black eyes as I 
never see in my born days !” 

“But isn’t it troublesome having a lodger?” 
asked Roger, guilefully. 

He knew it was so easy to set Mrs. Bratchet 
going, and it was so pleasant to lie there on the 
hearth-rug and hear about this golden-haired 
girl that had sung her way into his young heart. 

“Troublesome? Why, yes, if you look at 
it that way ; but as simple as a child, bless her ! 
and goes round about and helps me as if I was 
her mother, and looks right at me with her big 
blue eyes when I start prayin’, as if she'd never 
seed a believer wrestlin’ with the Almighty 
afore. But I’m thinking there ain’t many out 
away where she comes from, in them there fur- 


THE BLUE EIBBON. 


43 


riii’ parts. It's a dark place, I’m afeard. When 
I told her I was a joined member of the Primi- 
tives, she just stared at me, and said she’d 
never heered tell o’ no such a place. I was 
fair fixed after that what to say.” 

“ Perhaps you’ll have some one to help you to 
sing now, Mrs. B ratchet,” hinted Roger again. 
“You know you have often said it would be 
twice as good if you didn’t have to do it all by 
yourself.” 

“Ah, there you’ve hit it, Master Roger,” 
said the good woman, setting off with renewed 
energy. “You couldn’t have spoke a truer 
word if you’d knowed her your very self. I 
told her from the first I was a believer, and she 
must come in to my ways if we was to pull com- 
fortable together; and I always had a Bible 
chapter and a bit of singing to myself of a night, 
and prayed up loud after. I’d always used to 
do it when me and Bratchet was together, and 
I’ve kept it up ever since ; and she stared at 
me a sort <Jf wondering-like, and said it was all 
right. So we began first night ever she come ; 
but, bless you! Master Roger, all the people 
on the stair got down to listen. They’d never 
heered nought like it afore — no more had I, for 
she tuned up that sweet and silvery you might 
have thought it was the angels on the plains 
of Bethlehem. And when I heard ’em stand- 
ing out there, I says to her, ‘Now, honey,’ 
says I, ‘ we’ll have a word of prayer, and then 
a bit more singing.’ And they staid, you 
know, ma’am, when they thought there was 
more to cnme, and I prayed up loud so as they 
might hear it, because I thought it might be 
more to profit than wlftit the singing was ; and 
ever since that first night I’ve had ’em on the 
stair reg’lar, and always prays up loud so as it 
may be to profit for ’em. I’m going to ask our 
minister if he don’t think it’s an opening for a 
cottage service. 

“And so you see, ma’am,” continued Mrs. 
Bratchet, preparing to depart, “as I say, I 
don’t doubt but what it’s a leading ; because, 
you see, I’m getting into years now in a man- 
ner, and the petticoats that full of frills and 
gofferings as you can’t make a profit out of 
’em anyway, not if you do your duty to ’em, 
as I can’t abide not to do it. And it isn’t a 
deal she pays me, neither, for I never liked to 
be hard on any body, ma’am, as has their own 
bread to addle ; and her all to herself, as you 
may say, for she’s left her kith and kin behind 
in yon outlandish place. So I said I’d do it 
all, and her meat too, for six shilling a week, 
which isn’t a deal into my pocket, when there’s 
a good appetite, which she’s blessed with at the 
present. But, you see, ma’am, the winter’s 
getting on, and the nights dark, and it’s a 
comfortable home for her, if there isn’t a deal 
in it according to the carnal mind, which I 
don’t go for to say there is. And when the 
prayer-meetings is set on— as they say there’s 
a prospect of it afore Christmas — we shall may 
be get her a bit of good done to her precious 
soul, because she don’t seem to object going 


with me to the means reg’lar of a Sunday morn- 
ing, only she likes the Minster of an afternoon, 
’cause of the music, for all I tell her there’s 
nothing saving in it; no more there is, for, 
when all’s said and done, it’s only like one that 
hath a pleasant voice, and plaveth well on an 
instrument.” 

“Now, Mrs. Bratchet,” said Roger, “ I won’t 
have that, and it isn’t according to the Scrip- 
tures either ; the voice and the instrument were 
saving enough — it was only the people who did 
not listen properly.” 

Mrs. Bratchet looked puzzled. 

“ I believe you’ve got me there, Mr. Roger, 
and it’s just like you to trip me up that way, 
because I always think I’m safe when I get 
into the Scripters, which they’re my medita- 
tion day and night. But I think I’ll be going 
now. It’s getting on for eight, I’ll be bound, 
and my young woman goes to the choir prac- 
tice. Mr. Grant soon found her out and pick- 
ed her up, as I reckon he don’t get many such 
a one, and as modest and well behaved, too, as 
if she was a bettermost sort, which I don’t mis- 
doubt she is, if we only knowed it ; and she 
said she wouldn’t set off while I come back,, 
because of leaving the key in the door. So 
good-night, ladies, and thank you kindly; and 
good-night, Master Roger, and you’ll excuse 
my mentioning the wristbands, though I shall 
be thankful when you’ve got up through all 
them nasty greasy shops, so as I can do my 
duty to ’em a bit easier.” 

“Ah, I see, Mrs. Bratchet, you want faith 
without works; and that won’t do, you know. 
Somebody says faith without works is dead, so 
I think you had better keep to the rubbing, 
hadn't you ?” 

And Roger got up and strolled away, for he 
belonged to the choir, too. 

“For shame, Mr. Roger, for shame, to use 
the blessed Scripters that way ! But, law, 
ma’am,” Mrs. Bratchet continued, turning to 
his mother as the young man went away, “ he 
don’t mean no harm, he don’t. I always did 
say Mr. Roger was a child of the kingdom, for 
all he has a free way with him, as you may 
say. He is such a good lad to his mother and 
sister — lays hisself out, ma’am, to do what’s 
right ; and works is works, I’ll always stand up 
for that, let faith be as good as it will.” 

And with that exposition of her creed Mrs. 
Bratchet went away. 


CHAPTER XY. 

The members of Mr. Grant’s choir met for 
their weekly practice in the great room of the 
City Hall, a curious old building in the High 
Street, where once the different Cruxborough 
guilds used to hold their meetings. From his 
place among the tenor singers Roger looked 
across in vain for the blue hood and fair curls 
of the 'rosv-faced lacquering girl ; but he soon 


44 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


heard her voice ringing out, clear, full-toned, 
melodious, unconsciously asserting itself as 
leader of all the rest. He remembered now 
hearing it once before at the choir practice, 
though he had not seen to whom it belonged, 
for the soprano singers sat in a sort of recess 
which was properly the place of honor for the 
mayor and corporation at city banquets. 

When the practice was over, he lingered 
outside, waiting for the girl to come out, for 
he thought he might venture to speak to her 
to-night in other than the song language which 
had hitherto been their only means of inter- 
course. But when she came tripping down 
the stairs with that free, careless, independ- 
ent step, alone, set apart from the others as 
much by her simple beauty as by that quaint 
peasant dress which marked her out as belong- 
ing to the lower class of German girls, his 
heart failed him. He dared not even seek a 
look from her. He was fain to content him- 
self by following at a distance, and admiring 
the modest yet fearless bearing with which, 
unsheltered save by her own innocence, she 
passed along. How different she looked from 
the rest of the Cruxborough girls of her own 
rank ! How the cleanly coarseness of the blue 
woolen cloak, held carelessly together over her 
round supple figure, and the brown serge pet- 
ticoat, plain as any nun need wear, just stop- 
ping in time enough to reveal the light trim 
little ankles clad in home-knit stockings, con- 
trasted with the shabby finery, the faded arti- 
ficial flowers, the tawdry bits of trimming which 
had disgusted him so often when the Wools- 
thorpe women had been turning out from work ! 
He thought how his mother and Jean would 
like this girl ; how her simple, honest ways, so 
frank and yet so guileless, would please them. 
And he wondered if ever it might be that she 
should sit at home with them in that little par- 
lor behind the shop — that dim, quiet little par- 
lor into which scarce ever a guest came now, 
save the old Canon, or Mr. Arncliffe, or the or- 
ganist. But that seemed almost too pleasant 
to think about. 

The girl went on, turning neither to the right 
hand nor to the left, apparently quite uncon- 
scious of the attention, sometimes rude, some- 
times admiring, which her dress and aspect at- 
tracted, until she came to the entrance of one 
of the Cruxborough billiard saloons, out of 
which two or three young men were saunter- 
ing wine-flushed, excited, scenting the air with 
mingled odors of musjk and cigar smoke. 

It was not often that the glare of light stream- 
ing from the crystal lamp over the entrance of 
the billiard saloon fell on so fair a head as that 
whose coronal of sunriy, rippling hair flashed 
back its brightness now. Nor did the lower 
class of Cruxborough girls carry themselves 
with that simple maiden pride which told itself 
in every gesture and movement of the graceful, 
rounded figure. So sweet a type of beauty sure- 
ly must not be allowed to pass without some rec- 
ognition from those who were qualified to judge. 


“ Good-evening, pretty one,” said the fore- 
most of the young men, laying his hand famil- 
iarly on her shoulder. As the young girl start- 
ed back with a slight cry of fear the others 
chuckled admiringly. Her figure, thrown back 
in the attitude of startled surprise, was positive- 
ly charming. “By Jove ! what a complexion ! 
And that hair!” and one of them pulled out a 
long curl and held it up in the lamp-light, while 
poor Gretchen, mute, trembling, looked pitiful- 
ly round for some one to help her. 

And help was nearer than either she or the 
young men thought. With a few strides Rog- 
er sprang into the midst of the group, laid one 
young man sprawling in the mud, while the oth- 
ers, seeing a policeman in the distance, wisely 
■walked away, not ‘being disposed to educate 
their sense of the beautiful at the risk of five 
shillings and costs. Roger took Gretchen’s 
hand under his arm and drew her quietly away, 
only looking long enough at the young man in 
the mud to find he was Mr. Reginald Ballinger. 
With a glad, bright smile — for she knew him 
again directly — the girl pressed closely to him, 
so closely that her ruffled hair almost touched 
his face. And then she said, sighing the long 
sigh that only comes after fear, 

“Ah, that is good ! You have found me. I 
am quite safe.” 

“May I go homt 
Roger, all his fain 
nothing left but the 
makes a man so stror 
itl 

“You are very gt 
quietly along beside h 
And then she said. ' up into his 

face, “I did hear you sing to-night, i 
know your voice again. Did you perhaps hear 
me, too?” 

“I should think I did!” said Roger, amused 
at her pretty eagerness to be recognized. “I 
wonder who did not hear you? I could not 
see you, but I felt for your voice, and kept sing- 
ing for it all the time.” 

The girl looked pleased, and drew a little 
closer to him ; yet there was not the faintest 
touch of coquetry in her manner as she talked 
on, facing him now and then with her full, 
frank smile. 

“I thought perhaps you w'ould know again. 
I did try very much to do my best, and I listen- 
ed for your voice to come near and touch mine, 
as we do sing to each other, you know, while I 
work through those long days. Do you like 
that I sing to you, then ? Yes ?” 

Did Roger like ? What could he do for an- 
swer but press the hand, neither soft nor white, 
but so honest and so clean, that lay upon his 
arm ? 

“Where learned you to sing?” she asked, 
after a little silence tha’t seemed sweeter far to 
Roger than speech. 

“ In the Minster/’ he said. “ I w f as the first 
treble when I was a little boy, and now I am 
one of the tenor song-men.” 



THE BLUE RIBBON. 


45 


“Yes, I know that. I see you when I come 
to hear the anthem on Sunday afternoon ; and 
it seems to me that I could always listen. But 
one day, at your Festival, I too shall sing there. 
The Herr Kapellmeister says my voice is good. 
I did know that,” continued the girl, tossing her 
head back with innocent pride, “ for it has been 
told to me before ; and he says I shall sing in 
the choruses. And you will listen for me, then ? 
Yes?” 

“I suppose I shall,” said Roger, looking up, 
and finding, to his great regret, that the old 
portal of the college yard was scarce a hundred 
yards before them. “ But tell me, where did 
you learn to sing? Not in Mr. Arnelifie’s lac- 
quering-room ?” 

A far-off, musing look came over Gretchen’s 
face ; a mist of longing and regret dimmed the 
clear blue eyes, and there was a pang of Heim- 
weh in her voice as she said, softly, 

“I did learn in my own town of Stuttgart. 
There we all do sing ; and I went to the Con- 
servatoire, which was for me a great honor. 
But at home we all did sing — we did sing when 
we worked, we did sing when we were happy. 
Ah, at Stuttgart it was beautiful !” 

And half-unconsciously the girl began sing- 
ing to herself in an under-voice a little Ger- 
man air — one of those she had sung in the lac- 
quering-room. Suddenly she stopped. 

“This is the college yard, where I do live. 
One Frau Bratcliet makes for me a home.” 
j _ . “ Does she ? I know the Frau Bratchet, as 
you call her. And now I suppose you do not 
want me ■ > stay with you any longer? Will 
you, tell me, before I go away, w r hat is your 
name ?” 

“My name is Gretchen Muller, but every 
one calls me only Gretchen.” 

“Then I shall call you only Gretchen, too. 
And are you happy with Frau Bratchet?” 

“Ah, well, she is very good, but she does 
give such long prayers! Surely mein Herr 
must be weary to listen so much. I do think 
of Him very often, as I think of my fatherland 
and my people there, but I do not give to Him 
such long prayers.” 

Scarcely knowing what he did, Roger had 
taken her hand, and was still holding it in his, 
as they two stood there under the black portal 
S of the college yard. 

“ Do you like being in England, Gretchen ?” 

“I know not,” she said, half sadly. “I 
j know not any thing. I want here no money 
from my own people, and they are poor. Per- 
haps, if I am good and try to do my work well, 
the Herr Arncliffe will some day let me come 
up higher, and I shall have more what you call 
wages, and I can send some to my mother that 
she may not always have to spin. But where- 
fore,” and she drew her hand away from his 
to pass it over her eyes — “wherefore do you 
make me think of home? I do sing, and I 
forget, and I am happy. We must be happy 
if we do no wrong, and if we can hear sweet 
music. It is to me as my home when I sing, 


for then I am at peace. Cute Ndcht” she said, 
as she turned away, and went, not with a free, 
elastic step any more, but slowly, thoughtfully, 
across the college yard to Mrs. Bratchet’s door. 
There she turned, and gravely bent her head 
to him before she went in. 

Roger staid under the shadow of the door- 
way. His heart was full of love and pity and 
passion. He wanted to take this simple girl 
to himself, and make her life one long, sweet 
song. But so much lay between him and 
that, so much that he dare not look upon it yet. 
He watched her shadow flitting to and fro upon 
the checked curtain of Mrs. Bratchet’s window. 
He went nearer. He heard the sound of the 
good woman’s voice reading their evening por- 
tion ; then there w r as a burst of song. Could 
it, indeed, be nothing more than a Primitive 
Methodist hymn tune which flooded every nook 
and corner of the old yard, and brought to 
their door-ways and windows groups of men 
and women, who listened with folded hands 
and thoughtful faces, as though an angel spoke 
to them in the music? Gretchen had gone 
“home” for a little season; she was speaking 
to herself in the native language of her soul. 
She was happy, and she forgot ! 


CHAPTER XYI. 

“ Mother, may I go over to Mrs. Bratehet’s 
some afternoon and bring Gretchen Muller to 
have tea with us ? Mr. Grant has been telling 
me about her. She is poor, and she has no 
friends, and she needs some one to be kind to 
her.” 

It was Jean Monkeston who said this as 
she came home one day from a long visit to 
the organist. Both Mr. and Mrs. Grant had 
found out Jean’s worth now, and counted her 
— not, perhaps, out of mere kindness — among 
the number of their true companions and 
friends. Many were the pleasant afternoons 
she spent in that tall, antiquated old house, at 
the west end of the close, playing on the cham- 
ber organ, or having long talks about art and 
music. Indeed, Mrs. Ballinger and her dear 
friend, Mrs. Balmain, who had now quite given 
over even noticing those Monkestons in the 
street, would have been rather disconcerted, 
not to say disgusted, if they could have peeped 
into the organist’s library one of these after- 
noons, and seen the little brown-faced hunch- 
back, as Mr. Reginald still called her, chatting 
away so brightly and pleasantly, without any 
apparent consciousness of that yawning chasm, 
terrible and wide, which ought forever to part 
between the close families and the unfortunate 
widow who Avas obliged to keep shop in such a 
respectable little city as Cruxborough. 

It Avas during one of these pleasant after- 
noon talks that the organist told Jean about 
the young German girl Avho had lately become 
a member of his choir. Of course, it Avas not 


4 G 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


likely that a voice like Gretclien Muller’s would 
let its owner remain long unnoticed. After 
hearing her a few times in the choir, Mr. Grant 
brought her to his own house, to try her music- 
al knowledge more thoroughly; and there he 
was not less surprised by the excellence of her 
voice than by her skill in managing it and her 
readiness in reading music. Here was no un- 
tutored girl, singing like a bird from simple in- 
stinct. Gretclien knew the principles of her 
art. She was well able to take the place which 
at once fell to her — that of leading the soprano 
voices in the choir. The organist had found 
a treasure at last, a jewel worth the trouble 
of cutting and polishing and mounting in the 
great artist diadem. It was a waste of talent, 
he thought, for Gretchen to be earning eight or 
ten shillings a week in Mr. Arncliffe’s lacquer- 
ing-room, when she ought to be giving all her 
time to the study of her art. He had been 
thinking the matter over, and talking to some 
of his wealthy friends ; and the end of it all 
was that Gretchen was to have her choice be- 
tween remaining in her present situation at the 
Woolsthorpe works, or being regularly trained 
for the musical profession ; the expense of such 
training, and her maintenance while she was 
undergoing it, to be repaid to Mr. Grant when 
she should have made her own position in the 
world. 

He had sent for the young girl to talk this 
matter over with her one afternoon, when Jean 
happened to come in. Jean had already heard 
of her through Mrs. Bratchet ; and from that 
report, as well as from Mr. Grant’s testimony, 
was prepared to love the simple German maid- 
en. She had also heard Roger speak of her ; 
she knew his little passage of romance with the 
blue-evcd singer, and she thought how pleasant 
it would be for him, if sometimes, when he 
came home from those long, weary days of 
work, a bright young face like Gretchen’s might 
be waiting for him in the little room behind the 
shop, and a companionship somewhat more in 
keeping with his own fresh, buoyant self help 
him through the quiet evenings. For Jean 
knew her brother could not always dwell con- 
tent in his present surroundings. He must 
have round him air and sunshine, which she 
and her mother could not always give. He 
must have some foam and sparkle on the cup 
of home life, or he would weary of it, and seek 
excitement elsewhere. 

Only she sought it for him, and found it, 
too, in what most people would have deemed a 
strange fashion. Gretchen was poor ; she had 
no friends ; she needed some one to be good 
to her. Three most cogent reasons for pre- 
venting the respectable people of Cruxborough 
generally from taking any notice of her. Poor ? 
then by all means let her keep in the back- 
ground. Poor people were a nuisance any- 
where, but especially when they thrust forth 
their cotton-gloved hands for invitations to tea 
and quiet evenings. No friends? Then let 
her go to an institution, or something of that 


sort; there were plenty in the country. Or 
stay, they would give her an order to the sec- 
retary of the society for promoting the employ- 
ment of indigent females — that would be in I 
the highest degree intelligent and effectual. 
Wanted some one to be kind to her ? Well, 
yes, of course ; most people wanted some one 
to be kind to them ; but the question was, what 
could they do in return for that kindness? 
Had they uespectable introductions ? Could 
they make it worth Cruxborough’s trouble to 
show them a little attention ? Could they give 
back dinner for dinner and supper for supper, 
and make a genteel appearance in the matter 
of evening dress? No. Well, then, Crux- 
borough put its hands into its pocket, and kept 
them there. 

Well for poor Gretchen that Miss Monk- 
eston judged differently. Well for her that a 
little of the old-fashioned way of doing good, 
all for love and nothing for reward, was still 
left in the ancient and highly reputable old 
city ; and that the shop-keeping widow, who 
was not thought worthy a place in genteel so- 
ciety, said at once, when the three reasons were 
laid before her, 

“ Bring her, my child, whenever you like, 
if you think she will care to come.” 

So Jean went to Mrs. Bratchet’s one Satur- 
day afternoon when she knew Gretchen would 
have left work early, and asked her, without 
any touch of patronage or condescension, if 
she would come over and have tea with them 
in that little back parlor behind the shorn 

Gretchen came. She did not r quire the 
formality of a previous call, nor yet any very 
lengthy notice to prepare a toilet for this, her 
first appearance in what might, with a due re- 
gard to truth, be called the lower classes of 
Cruxborough society. Yet how fair and fresh 
the rosy-faced German girl looked when Jean 
led her into the little room, and she courtesied 
low to “ madame,” who with grave yet mother- 
ly kindness bade her welcome there! For 
Gretchen had put on her holiday attire. The 
brown woolen petticoat was changed for one 
of bright blue frieze, with a running pattern 
of hand-wrought embroidery round it ; and she 
wore a kirtle of black stuff, gayly embroidered 
too, over a clear muslin bodice ; and she had 
a knot of blue ribbons in her bosom ; and at her 
side hung the little sachel, which seemed to 
give its finishing touch of piquancy and coquet- 
tishness to the whole costume. There was no 
shyness about her either, no awkwardness nor 
restraint, as she took the welcome so freely 
given. Rather she seemed like a simple child, 
who, having long missed the loving tenderness 
of home, finds it again at last and is at rest. 

“ I am so glad you like me,” she said, when 
Jean, who had a keen eye for beauty, could 
not help admiring the pretty appearance of 
their new guest. “This is my festa dress, 
and I put it on because it is for me a festival 
that I have tea with you. Ah, but it is so sel- 
dom that I want it. now! Here it is work, 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


47 


work only, work always, except for one whole 
day when you must say your prayers.” 

“ Never mind, Gretchen. If you will put it 
on every time you come to see us, I can prom- 
ise you it shall often come out. Roger will be 
so pleased ! He will think when he comes in 
that you have stepped down out of a picture. 
You have heard my brother Roger sing at the 
Minster, have you not ?” 

“ Yes, and I have heard him sing at the 
works ; and when I hear him I sing too ; and 
that is how we talk to each other,” said Gret- 
chen, frankly, unconscious that this was not the 
way every body did in England. “And it makes 
my work seem to me that it is not work. When 
he comes in, perhaps we shall sing again — yes ? 
He was very much surprised that I should sing 
so well, and lie asked me where I learned, and 
I told him in my old home at Stuttgart we all 
do sing ; it is our life.” 

Jean looked at her wistfully ; this bright- 
eyed, open-faced girl, from whom the beautiful 
. years as they came would keep back nothing 
but perhaps the empty honor of a place in so- 
ciety. It gave her a pang sometimes, even yet, 
to look out from her shadow into the sun’s 
brightness but never feel its warmth. 

“ Shall you be vexed,” she said, “if I ask 
you why you came away from Stuttgart ?” 

“ No,” answered the girl, very simply. “ Why 
should I be vexed that you ask me every thing? 
. I went to the Conservatoire, what you call the 
Vsckv.' "’-for music, and the signor, who came to 
visit there* once, wished that I should go away 
from my home with him and be a great singer. 
But my mother did not think it good. He was 
too grand, too edel; and she said it must be 
that I should come away, for the signor did so 
often come to see me, and we were very poor ; 
and an English lady brought me to London 
with her, to be what you call a governess for 
the nursery, because well she knew me, and 
she was very kind. But I could not be happy. 
None ever spoke to me of my home and my 
friends ; and I tried to do well, and I worked 
very hard, but none ever took my hand and said 
to me, * Gretchen, thou art a good little maid- 
en.’ And then I did hear that one of my own 
country people worked for the Herr Arncliffe, 
and I thought I would like to earn the money 
so, and to him I wrote ; and he spoke for me 
to the Herr, and I come, and I work with the 
other girls, and one Frau Bratchet makes for 
me my home, and I do not complain any more.” 

Quietly Jean put out her hand, and laid it 
with a soft, caressing touch upon Gretchen’s. 
The girl put it to her lips, then leaned her cheek 
upon it. 

“Mrs. Bratchet is very good,” said Mrs. 
Monkeston. “ You will be safe with her, quite 
safe.” 

“ What is that ?” said Gretchen. “Safe ?” 

“I mean that no one can do you any harm 
while you are with her. She is a good woman.” 

“Oh yes — only—” 

. And there came over the girl’s face again 


that unquiet look, scarcely so much of sadness 
or regret as of longing after something never 
yet given to her. She looked round upon the 
little room, so simply furnished, yet so beauti- 
ful in its very simpleness, bearing everywhere 
the mark of Jean’s exquisite artistic taste ; she 
stretched herself upon the low couch and nes- 
tled her head into its soft cushions, as if she 
would reach into the very heart of their cozy 
comfort. And there was almost a touch of 
disdain in her voice as she said, 

“ In the Frau Bratchet’s home there is noth- 
ing beautiful. All is only for use. At home, 
though we were poor, and my father cut wood 
in the forest, and my mother, when she had 
made clean the house, must spin for a long 
time, still we had always something beautiful. 
There were little pictures, with the frames as 
the Fraulein Monkeston makes them here ; and 
there were flowers everywhere that I brought 
in from the woods, and I put for my mother a 
rose into her dress as she did sit to spin. But 
the Frau Bratchet does wear no rose.” 

Jean could not help laughing. It was too 
funny to picture honest old Mrs. Bratchet with 
a rose blushing in the capacious folds of the 
lilac print which covered her matronly bosom. 
No ; if Mrs. Bratchet wore a flower at all, it 
ought to be a cauliflower. 

“But, Gretchen, you can have flowers here, 
if you like. I will tell you where you may find 
them in the summer-time, and even now there 
are autumn leaves and red berries. Some day 
I will go with you to gather them ; that is ” — 
and Jean looked down upon her crooked limbs 
— “ if you would not mind going out with me.” 

Gretchen kissed the little brown hand again. 
She knew well enough what that look meant. 

“Why should I not like? I love you, and 
it is for me like home when I look into your 
face. Yes, I know there are flowers here. 
Once I went far out into the woods, and I 
found the Danuer-baum that in our country we 
love so much, and we have a song for it ; and 
I brought some of the beautiful leaves home, 
and I made with them ein Kranz , what you call 
garland, and hung it in the window ; but the 
Frau Bratchet, when she came home, made 
only an ugly face, and said it was ‘ pisen,’ some- 
thing hemlock, she said, and threw my leaves 
away.” 

Jean laughed again. That “ pisen ” came 
out so innocently from the rosy lips. 

“And once again,” the girl went on, “I 
brought ivy leaves and long grass, and while 
the Frau Bratchet hung out her clothes in the 
yard, I arranged them so that it pleased me 
much ; and I thought the Frau must needs say 
to me, ‘Now, Gretchen, thou art a good little 
maid.’ But” — and Gretchen shrugged her 
pretty shoulders — “ behold, it was her bowl for 
starch that I had put them in, and she must 
have it for the Herr Monkeston’s wristbands ; 
and my ivy did go into the fire. So now tve 
have nothing beautiful.” 

A bright thought came into Jean’s mind. 


48 


THE BLUE EIBBON. 


How pleasant it would be to have this girl 
come and live with them always ! how much 
better for her, too, than being with Mrs. Brat- 
chet, whose homely, dutiful life she could 
scarcely yet comprehend. Safe she might be 
there, indeed, but for that safety all that was 
fine and artistic in her nature must starve, 
while what was really good and almost grand 
in the honest woman’s character was lost upon 
her. Gretchen’s soul wanted something beau- 
tiful to cherish it into perfection. Then they 
would read together, and Jean could teach her 
so many things which, in that peasant life of 
hers at home, she could never learn ; and at 
night, when Roger came home, they would all 
sing together, and he would be so happy ! 

But Jean said nothing yet, only thought. 
And because that restless look still ruffled the 
clear brightness of Gretchen’s, face she went 
and played for her until the smile came back 
again — played while the Minster bells chimed 
and lights began to flicker out from the storied 
windows, and the chanted music, in which 
Roger was even now taking part, stole into the 
little room, and all was rest and peace. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Roger Monkeston, filled with his new- 
found happiness, was fast faring toward that 
“ bower pf bliss ” whose subtle sweetness — did 
no brave Sir Guvon, with holy palmer attend- 
ing, cross his path to warn him from it — might 
soon win from him his manhood, and leave him, 
robbed of all lofty purpose or noble endeavor, 
a loiterer in the easeful valley looking toward, 
but never longing any more to reach the mount- 
ain top which once seemed so fair. 

He was in no hurry now to leave that end 
of the finishing-room in which Providence had 
appointed his daily labor. Most wholesome 
and practical seemed to him the sermon which 
old Dr. Boniface preached in Cruxborough 
Minster, the Sunday after he had that pleasant 
w alk home with Gretchen — the sermon in which 
Dr. Boniface had said that we should not long 
after change, but stand patiently at the post 
where a wisdom higher than ours had placed 
us, never hasting to move from it to a higher 
sphere. Hasting to remove ? why, that finish- 
ing-room was his paradise now, and the only 
tree of knowledge whose fruit he cared to pluck 
was that which Gretchen’s voice and Gretchen’s 
smile and the touch of Gretchen’s hand revealed 
to him. As for the mathematical department, 
which was to come next, the inner court, as it 
were, in which he was to study the higher branch- 
es of his art, why, Roger did not like even to 
think of that, nor of the “higher branches,” 
which must take him farther away from Gret- 
chen. For still she sang to him so sweetly 
on the other side of that partition, and laugh- 
ed out upon him with her rich, bright face if he 
waited for her in the great corridor when work 


was done ; and sometimes at night, if Patch 
were not there like a grim old duenna to guard 
the girl home, he would follow her and have a 
few minutes of pleasant speech under the dark 
portals of the college yard, ending in a hand- 
clasp, long, soft, and lingering, in which he tried 
to tell the story that could find no way as yet in 
words. 

Why should he wish now to be a great man, 
to plague himself with those weary years of 
study through which Mr. Arnclifie told him lie 
must work his way so patiently, if ever he wish- 
ed to take his place among the crowned heads 
of science ? Crowned heads, indeed ! he want- 
ed no crown now, but Gretchen’s love. Place 
among the great men of his time! — all that he 
cared for was a humble little house somewhere, 
with this German peasant maid for its queen, 
this peasant maid with her frieze petticoat, and 
her pretty bare arms, and her coronal of sunny 
hair, and her voice which could sing so sweetly 
to him in the long winter evenings. What a 
weariness ever to be striving up when the val- 
ley beneath was so pleasant ! Why should he 
not stay in that finishing-room, earning me- 
chanics’ wages with the rest of the men ? Why 
should he not ask Gretchen at once to be his 
wife, to share such a simple home as he could 
make for her, without longer waiting for it? 
The great people might look down upon him, 
and Mr. Arnclifie might be a little disappointed 
perhaps ; but he and Gretchen would be happy 
together, and was not that the first thing V- 

And if a thought of Jean came' over. him 
sometimes, Jean, who was his to care for and 
cherish all through life, that passionate love, 
which as yet had only self for its end and aim, 
swept as with a great ocean wave over all such 
little hinderances, and covered them with a glo- 
rious glistening veil of foam. Only in hours 
of quiet thought, when the tide was low and 
the wind was still, did they show themselves 
again, rising like great black, solemn rocks 
amidst the ■waves of passion -which could no 
longer hide them, and Roger remembered, and 
a great strife arose within him. 

Such an hour of ebb-tide came to him on 
the afternoon of Gretchen’s visit to the little 
house in Bishop’s Lane, when, putting off his 
working blouse, he hurried away to take his 
place in the Minster choir. The pure white 
surplice seemed to bring with it better, holier 
thoughts. Always to him a robe of joy in 
which he offered his service of song, it was to- 
day almost as a priestly garment. Wearing 
it, he seemed to step into a higher life. As he 
sat in his place, listening to the voices of prayer 
and praise, old days came back upon him. He 
remembered that terrible evening, so far back 
now, when Mr. Ballinger’s w*ords had stung 
him through with sudden terror. He remem- 
bered how, as he stood there trying to sing 
through the tears which choked his voice, ev- 
ery face and figure in the gloomy old cathedral 
had seemed to him as the face and figure of 
his sister. Jean, pale, stricken, suffering, re- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


49 


bilking ; Jean, whom now he could so easily 
forget, whom he even wished to forget, whose 
image now was a dark unwelcome thought 
rising above the tide of his new-found joy. 

Again, a child no longer, but a man, with 
all a man’s strength of hope and passion, a 
man’s longing to do and dare, to possess and 
enjoy, a man’s power to fight with conscience, 
a man’s power, too, to feel its pitiless, smiting 
sting, Roger looked up to those sculptured faces 
of angel, saint, and martyr. And almost with 
reproach more majestic than that which had 
smitten his childish heart they frowned upon 
him now, calm, sad, regretful. It was almost 
as if they said to him, 

“Thou art untrue to thyself, untrue to thy 
love, untrue to thy duty.” 

Roger knew it was even so. The tide was 
very low now. The great black rocks of sor- 
rowful remembrance were all too plain around 
him. And there was a great silence, for the 
winds and waves of passion were at rest. 

As sometimes on shelving coasts a little 
brook runs down through cleft and chasm to 
the sea, mingling its babble with the great 
everlasting murmur of the waves, so in Roger’s 
life two voices had lately been speaking to 
him, and the chattering brook of easy self-in- 
dulgence, because so close to him, had had the 
better part. It had been so easy to listen to 
that, so easy to forget the other. Now, sitting 
there in the old Minster, all round and about 
him the presence of its gloom and grandeur, 
that other voice began to speak. 

Far off he heard the solemn sound of the 
great waves of duty, rolling and breaking in 
upon the shores of his life. He listened, and 
the chatter of the little brook now seemed so 
vain, so shallow ! A great longing arose with- 
in him to do the right — to be led by the high- 
est in himself, not the lowest. To be true to 
Gretchen, but so true that his love for her 
should lift them both to a better standing- 
place ; that they should rise together, not for- 
ever sun themselves on the lazy level of low 
content. He would work, he .would wait, he 
w'ould be patient. He would win all that was 
possible to him in the great world of art and 
science, and make pleasure the handmaid of 
right, not its tyrant. 

As from a dream Roger woke up, and found 
it was time for the anthem ; and then with his 
whole soul he joined in that glorious burst of 
praise from Mozart’s “Twelfth Mass,” “I will 
give thanks.” Truly it seemed to him as if 
its glorious tumult of harmony, its flood upon 
flood of triumphant, jubilant song, were sweep- 
ing him along as toward some great gate of 
thanksgiving, through which his soul should go 
in to God, who had this day lifted him out of 
his lower self to the high, pure life of duty. 

So, when all was over, Roger, glad, quiet, 
reverent, went home. 

As he crossed the cast end of the close, he 
noticed in the dusk little knots of people gath- 
ered about his mother’s house, and, coming 

4 


nearer, he heard a sweet voice singing one of 
the German songs he knew so well. It must 
be Gretchen — no other voice had the silver ring 
of perfect melody. But how could Gretchen 
be there; and how could any dream so soon 
come true as that in which he had pictured her 
at home with them in the little room behind 
the shop — or was he dreaming still ? 

No ; for he hurried along, went very silently 
into the house, and, standing in the narrow en- 
try, looked through the half-open door into the 
parlor, where Jean sat at the piano, and beside 
her Gretchen, in her festa dress, her whole 
happy soul looking forth through her eyes as 
she sang. 

Take that girl and bind her down with him 
in the dull mechanic’s home, which might be 
his for the asking, now ! Nay, let him rather 
rise and lift her with him, until, hand in hand, 
they might enter on a life worthy of them both. 
Seeing Gretchen thus, a strange new light 
seemed to come into his love for her. It was 
no longer a selfish joy, given to make his own 
days bright, but a touch as from some divine 
hand upon the eyelids of his soul, opening them 
to the light of day and the glory of the great 
world of hope. 

Jean stopped, and then he went in. 

“ I have made a surprise for you, Roger,” 
she said, as she led forward Gretchen, smiling 
with pretty consciousness of how different she 
must look now. 

And Roger felt so proud as he clasped hands 
with her in his own home. It seemed as if he 
had given her away for a little season, that he 
might receive her again, his own more closely, 
more beautifully than before. And that his 
mother was well pleased he could tell by one 
quick look into her grave, quiet face, so full of 
motherliness whenever her eyes fell upon the 
girl. Gretchen was at home. 

“ Is it not good of the Fraulein that she 
should ask me to come to your house?” she 
said, coming to meet him with a frank smile. 
“ It was a great festival for me that I should 
come ; and madame speaks to me so kindly. 
I would that I could do something for you !” 

“You can do something, Gretchen,” said 
Jean. “You can come and see us very often, 
and you will sing to us, and make us quite 
bright. But I forgot, you are always at work. 
I suppose you can only take holiday on Satur- 
day afternoons ?” 

“No, for I must work all the time to pay 
the Frau Bratchet that she makes my home. 
And then soon I shall have my clothes to buy. 
I have not yet wanted to buy any, because 
my mother made me many when I came with 
the lady to England. But,” and Gretchen’s 
face suddenly lighted up, as if quite a new 
thought had struck her, “ you know the good 
Kapellmeister has been speaking with me, and 
he wdshes that I should no longer work at Herr 
Arncliffe’s, but give all my time to music ; and 
then, you know, I can often come and see you. 
He says some kind people would pay for me, 


50 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


that I should not have to work ; but that would 
not please me. It makes me that I seem to 
beg. My mother taught me it was not honor- 
able that the poor should not work ; and look 
at my hands, they are too strong to take what 
you call charity. Only I work so long, so very 
long, at Herr Arn cliff e’s, and then I have so 
little time for my music ; and to be happy and 
to enjoy myself, I have no time. But what 
can I do? I can spin. Would that bring me 
money ?’’ 

“Not much nowadays,” said Mrs. Monkes- 
ton. “ They can do it better by machinery. 
I am afraid spinning would be no better for you 
than working in the lacquering-room. But 
can you sew nicely ?” 

“ Can I sew ?” And Gretchen’s eyes spark- 
led as she ran toward Mrs. Monkeston, pulling 
down the sleeve of her bodice to show the frill- 
ing upon it. “I did this all with my own 
hands, and all what I wear is of my own hands. 
And my dress, this pretty embroidery, I did it 
at home. Can I not, then, sew ? And do you 
say, can I knit? Look here.” 

And Gretchen pushed out from beneath her 
embroidered petticoat a foot and ankle, not 
slender, certainly, but firmly and beatifully 
moulded, to show the gray stocking which fit- 
ted so daintily. 

“ Can I not knit? Yes. Ah, you do wrong 
that you say to a German maiden, can you sew, 
can you knit, can you spin ? For do not we at 
home spend our days in doing these things ?” 

“Well, then,” said Mrs. Monkeston, smiling 
at her eagerness, “ I think I can give you work 
enough. I supply a woman now, who is often 
so busy she can not do all I want. If you can 
do it for me, I will pay you for it, perhaps bet- 
ter than Mr. Arncliffe pays you for lacquering. 
You know any one can do that sort of work, 
but any one can not sew and knit well ; so it is 
worth more money. You will be able to earn 
as much in half the time, and then you can 
practice. Will not that be better ?” 

Gretchen ran across the room to kiss ma- 
dame’s hand. 

“Ah, how you are good! You make me 
full of gladness ! And now it will not be char- 
ity that I stay at the Frau Bratchet’s, and give 
time to my music. But you will have patience 
with me, will you not? for my hands are 
rough now ; but I will try very hard, and I will 
make my stitches ever so small, and you shall 
never have to say to me, ‘Gretchen, thou art 
a careless child !’ Ah, madame, how happy I 
shall be ! for I like not that room where the 
girls do always laugh and talk. It is not to 
me as my home.” 

“And so we will never sing to each other 
again there,” said Roger, whose face showed 
that he, at least, did not think this new move 
such a very brilliant success. And it had come 
so suddenly upon him that he could scarcely 
see yet how good it would be for Gretchen. 
“Won’t you miss it just a little?” 

“Ah!” and Gretchen drew in her breath. 


She had never thought about that. But she 
soon brightened up again. Apparently those 
long hours of singing talk were not so needful 
to her as to Roger. 

“I had forgotten. But, you know, I shall 
have to bring my work home to madame, and 
perhaps she will sometimes ask me that I stop 
and have tea with you, like now ; and we shall 
sing, and always, at the practice, I shall feel for 
your voice, and come close up to it — close up 
— and you will know that I am not far off. 
Yes? Is not that enough? And then will 
come the Festival. Ah, how I do want that 
the Festival shall come ! And I shall put on 
this, my festa dress. The Frau Bratcliet is to 
wash the bodice for me, and perhaps I will have 
a ribbon in my hair. At the Conservatoire, 
when I did sing in the chorus, I always had a 
ribbon in my hair. Ach! why do I talk about 
the Conservatoire ? I must forget, and do my 
work.” 

“Suppose you forget, and sing instead,” 
said Jean, seeing that wistful look come over 
the girl’s face again, far-off, restless, almost 
pathetic ; and she drew Gretchen to the piano, 
and Roger came, and the two sang together ; 
and it seemed to him that their hearts touched 
each other in the music, and the subtle harmony 
was like a long sweet kiss to him, and he never 
knew that Gretchen’s thoughts were far away. 

Then he went home with her. 

“ Good -night,” he said, as they stood to- 
gether under the door-way of the old college. 
He had made the way as long as he could, for 
it was so pleasant to have her all to himself in 
the gloom and quiet of the streets. “Good- 
night. I must go home to my mother and sis- 
ter now.” 

She repeated his words slowly, letting her 
hand stay in his all the time, and looking up at 
him with that curious, musing expression. 

“You say I do go home to my mother and 
my sister. That has to me a sound like music. 
You do go home to your mother and your sister 
— I do go home to the Frau Bratchet in the one 
little room ; and I have no mother, and I have no 
sister, and no one says to me mein Kind. But 
I sing, and that is my home. Gute Nacht .” 

And she flitted from him into the gloomy 
old yard. 

“Jean,” he said, tenderly, as he gave his sis- 
ter her good-night kiss, “ it was very good of 
you to bring Gretchen.” 

Jean only looked up into his bright, hand- 
some face, lighted, as it seemed to her now, 
with a fresh glow from the happy soul within, 
and gave back kiss for kiss. Perhaps in that 
kiss the brother and sister told each other all. 
Perhaps Jean, standing in the shadow — forever 
in the shadow — had clear vision to see the sun- 
shine’s brightness on the faces of them who 
walked therein. And if so, well ; for she had 
looked into Gretchen’s soul, and found it fresh 
and pure as the morning. 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


51 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

Gretchen ran across the college yard and 
into Mrs. Bratchet’s room, bright and cozy 
enough now, for this was Saturday night, and a 
clear red fire burned in the low grate, and the 
laces and muslins which would be worn by 
fashionable Cruxborough at church on the 
morrow, hung before it “airing off,” in readi- 
ness to be taken to their respective destina- 
tions. Mrs. Bratchet herself, rough, wholesome, 
sweet as one of her own home-made brown 
meal loaves, stood at her ironing-board, sup- 
ported on the opposite side by Patch, who al- 
ways came to help on Saturday nights. 

“Well, honey, and ye’ve had a good time, 
I lay. It’s thankful you ought to be as you’re 
bidden to such’n a house, for Mrs. Monkeston’s 
a friend as’ll stick to you through thick and 
thin.” 

“Yes,” said Gretchen, quietly, unclasping 
her kirtle at once, and taking off her muslin 
bodice, that she might straighten the frills of 
it before she put it away. “Madame is very 
kind, and she has said to me something that 
makes me glad. She says that I shall work 
for her instead of the Herr Arncliffe, and she 
will pay me better as I can earn there ; so I 
shall sit by you and do my work, save when I 
must practice for the Kapellmeister.” 

“ VoiV' and Patch raised her black brows. 
“Then you will be off my mind. 1 like not 
those works for you, and the men coming and 
going. It has given me a heavy heart many a 
time. Now you will be safe.” 

“I shall be happy,” said Gretchen, begin- 
ning to sing herself a little German song. 

When she had done, Patch took up the air 
and sang it through, finishing off with a brill- 
iant cadenza that would not have disgraced a 
concert-room. 

“Ah! where learned you to sing?” asked 
Gretchen, who could not do roulades, herself. 
“ I think the Herr Kapellmeister should hear 

.you-” 

“ Oh, I can sing well enough, and act too, 
if you like ! I’ve done it in my time. Look 
here!” 

And Patch, pushing away her iron, threw 
herself into an attitude, and went clearly, brill- 
iantly, correctly through the whole of a scene 
from some Italian opera. 

“ There !” she said, coolly, as she took up her 
iron again, and went on with one of Mrs. Bal- 
linger’s Valenciennes lace-collars. 

Mrs. Bratchet could not stand that, though. 

“ Did ever any body ? And a grown woman 
to be carrying on like that ! The folk up the 
stair’ll think we’ve gone clean mad ! If you’re 
bound to tune up, let’s have a hymn.” 

And the good lady began, in a brisk, cheery 
voice, 

“ We’re marching through Emmanuel’s laud, 
Emmanuel’s land, Emmanuel’s land.” 

But nobody joined in, and when she had got 
to the end, Gretchen said, 


“No, please; we do have so much hymns. 
Patch does sing very well. I have before 
heard music like that at the Conservatoire, and 
I think I do like it better than your hymns.” 

“ Conservatoire, child ! What do you know 
about a Conservatoire ?” said Patch, a light be- 
ginning to dance and flicker in her black eyes. 
“I thought your father cut wood in the for- 
est, and your mother spun.” 

“ Yes, so ; but I did go to the Conservatoire, 
and I did sing very well, and the signor wish- 
ed that I should — he wished that I should go 
with him and learn to be always a singer.” 

“Poor child ! But well, well, you did not 
go?” 

“No, my mother said no. She said it was 
not well for me that I should go with him.” 

“ If you ever say your prayers, child,” and 
Patch looked fiercely into the girl’s face, “ thank 
God that you had a mother, and that she did 
not let you go away ! I had no father and no 
mother, and no good angel told me I had bet- 
ter stay in my own country. How looked . this 
signor that would have had you away with him ? 
Or have you forgotten all about it ?” 

“JawoM! Ask me do I forget how the sun 
shines on the flowers in my father’s little gar- 
den, and it is but since a year that I do not see 
them. But ach ! why do you make me that I 
remember? I would be at rest. I am tired.” 

And Gretchen leaned her pretty head back ; 
but, instead of finding the soft welcome of 
Jean Monkeston’s cushion, it only knocked 
against Mrs. Bratchet’s brown earthen -ware 
starch-bowl, which, having done its work for 
the week, was reared up by way of ornament at 
that end of the room. Gretchen shrugged her 
shoulders impatiently. 

“ Was fur eine Pest! I shall go to bed.” 

Mrs. Bratchet could not understand Gret- 
chen’s little splutterings of German pettishness, 
but she could well interpret the look of restless 
weariness in the girl’s face. She had seen it 
there before sometimes, after practicing nights. 

“Ay, honey, you’re done up — 'get away to 
bed ; that’s the place for you. And when these 
things is sided out, I’ll bring you a cup of 
porridge wi’ ginger in it. It’s a fine thing for 
sleeping on, is porridge and ginger.” 

“Yes,” added Patch, who had been eying 
the girl keenly, “and take thy quick temper 
with thee ; it will keep thee warm. Some day 
thou mayest live to thank them that wish thee 
well. Buona-notte .” 

With a pouting lip Gretchen turned away, 
gathering up her muslin bodice and the blue 
woolen cloak. When her footfall was heard in 
the room overhead Mrs. Bratchet began again, 

“Poor wench! It don’t do for her to - gad 
about among her betters. Little folks is best 
among their own sort, and it always fetches her 
in the dumps when you set on about them there 
furrin parts. It’s hard lines for them as can’t 
stop by their own kith and kin.” 

“I wonder why she could not stop?” said 
Patch. 


52 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


‘ ‘ I don’t know. I don’t ever ask no questions 
much. But I misdoubt it was that what’n ye 
call him, as wanted her away with him. The 
old mother seems a good sort, and happen 
thought she’d be safer where he wasn’t coming 
and going so much, and so she got her fixed 
with the lady as come to England. I don’t 
wonder she couldn’t settle in London, though ; 
it’s a big place, and nobody don’t care whether 
you’re dead or alive ; and maybe she’s better 
here, where the folks isn’t so thick set. And 
now Mrs. Monkeston, bless her ! has took kind- 
ly to her, why, she’ll be as safe as a bank. 

“But law, now,” continued the good wom- 
an, “ to think of Mrs. Monkeston doing it, and 
she that pinched for money while she has to 
look both sides of a penny, as you may say, 
afore she spends it. But some has it nat’ral, 
that’s where it is. They’d part their last crust 
to them as wanted a bite ; and some, if they 
had their houses full of silver and gold, accord- 
in’ to the blessed Scripters, wouldn’t let a far- 
thing of it go out of their sight as didn’t bring 
its even back again. I’ve known both sorts in 
this here place.” 

“Well,” said Patch, who looked as if she 
had been trying to recall something far back, 
“ I like justice. I care not to praise people. 
And I think Mrs. Monkeston is not so poor. 
She has money coming to her that the shop 
does not bring.” 

“Ay, who says she hasn’t? A fifty pound 
a year, as she brought to her own fort’n, and 
that scamp of a husband couldn’t lay hands on 
it. And that’s what kept ’em all from starv- 
ing when first the shop was set agate, afore it 
started to pay. But over that she hasn't a 
penny as she don’t fight for, and Miss Jean, 
poor thing, bless her ! always to be kept, for it 
don’t stand to reason but what the young 
man ’ll go his own gate some o’ these days, an 
wed a wife as he’s picked- for hisself, and then 
where ’ll Miss Jean be when her mother’s 
gone?” 

“No,” said Patch; “she has more, and I 
will tell you how I know it. You remember 
when I lived with old Mr. Armstrong ?” 

“Ay, old Hiram, down at Wastewood. 
Him as they say ruined poor Ralph Monkeston, 
with leading him about to one public after an- 
other while he was that drunk he couldn’t 
guide hisself straight.” 

“Well, as to that, if people said truly, 
Ralph Monkeston never could guide himself, 
drunk or sober. But Mr. Armstrong was a 
strange man. I knew many things which I 
never made it my business to tell to other peo- 
ple. I will say for him, though, that he did 
not try to show himself better than he was. 
If he did wrong, he owned to it. And he was 
kind to me. Where should I now have been 
if he had not that snowy day brought me in 
and kept me to be his servant ? In my grave, 
perhaps. My grave, and my work that I wait 
for not done !” 

Patch muttered an Italian oath, which for- 


tunately Mrs. Bratchet did not understand, j 
and growled like a chained-up creature as she 
set the ruffles of an elaborate dress-shirt. 

“Si. And could I have rested there ? Ah! 
Madonna .” 

“Stuff about your Madonnas! You did 
well enough for old Hiram. It was a good 
day for him when he took you in. He w'as 
never so comfortably fixed afore. And talk 
about your w'ork — why, nobody goes w r hile their 
work is doing. You’ve many a frill to starch 
yet, Patch, afore you’ll be ready for that brave 
bedgown as you’ve got laid by to be streaked 
for your buryin’. There isn’t a woman in 
Cruxborough gets up fine things like yourself, 
though I say it as reckons to do ’em pretty 
fair myself. There’s gifts and there’s graces, 
Patch ; and I wxm’t say as you’ve got the 
graces, for I don’t think you’ve ever given a 
thought to the savin’ of your soul, for as much 
as I’ve been at you in season and out of season 
to get you to the means ; but the gift is there, 
and I’m not the woman to deny it.” 

Patch curled that scornful upper lip of hers. 

“I never set myself to do any thing yet that 
I did not make an end of it. But I did not 
begin to talk to you about myself, only that 
Mrs. Monkeston has more money than you 
think, and I will tell you how I know. Only 
a w r eek before my master died there came to 
his house that man whom I despise, that Mr. 
Ballinger; and they had a long talk, and all 
the time my master kept drinking. lie used 
to tell me almost everything when he had been 
drinking. I know all of his life— that he had 
once been poor, and that he became rich be- 
cause Ralph Monkeston’s father lent him mon- 
ey; and that night, when I brought him his 
supper, he told me that he had been making 
atonement for his w r rong-doings, and that he 
had given Mr. Ballinger large money to pay to 
Mr. Monkeston at different times that the lit- 
tle boy might be taught at school. And I 
courtesied as was my place, and said, ‘Yes, 
sir.’ It was not for me to ask questions, but 
still I remember; and therefore I know. It 
was money in shares too, and Mr. Ballinger 
w r as to pay the interest.” 

“Well,” and Mrs. Bratchet began to put 
away her work, for it was late, “ it’s none of 
my business to find out what folks have and 
what they haven’t. I’m pretty sure of one 
thing — Mrs. Monkeston isn’t a woman to 
scrape her cheese when she can afford to pare 
it ; and if she’d had ought settled to turn round 
upon I should ha’ known it, coming and g ring 
as I’ve been about her this more’n tw-enty year. 
There’s many a man, Patch, thinks he’ll do 
a good turn when lie’s in his cups, but next 
morning he bites as sharp as ever.” 

“He said he had done it, though,” persisted 
Patch. 

“I don’t care what he said else, so long as 
he didn’t say as Mrs. Monkeston had humbled 
herself to take it. For as good as he w’as to 
you, Patch — and I don’t deny but w r hat he was 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


53 


raised up for you in your need — it’s my belief, 
if he’d gone and laid his silver and his gold at 
Mrs. Monkeston’s feet, she’d none have stoop- 
ed herself to pick ’em up at his giving. And 
now these things must be took home to Bal- 
linger’s.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Roger worked bravely, steadily on ; so brave- 
ly that Mr. Arncliffe, who had never been oth- 
er than satisfied with the young man’s industry, 
was now almost surprised at the energy and 
perseverance which carried him so successfully 
through his work. Often a keen, questioning 
look would pass over the shrewd face of the old 
man as he handed back to Roger the problems 
which had been so correctly solved; the sheets 
of calculations, crowded with figures, not one 
of which had needed to be crossed out ; prob- 
lems and calculations which might have puz- 
zled many a university man, and which even 
Mr. Arncliffe himself had not mastered without 
an effort. And though he took Roger’s word 
that they had been done by himself, still he 
could not help making inquiries now and then 
among his friends in Cruxborough, to be really 
sure that the young man was not being private- 
ly coached. 

When he found all was honest and straight- 
forward he began to feel a genuine pride in his 
pupil. He looked forward with confidence now 
to the time when that young head might hold 
itself proudly enough in the place which he 
should then have given up, nay, perhaps in a 
higher place than his own. For Mr. Arncliffe 
loved science for its own sake rather than for 
the fame it brought him; and there was the 
touch of fine nobility in him gladly to step 
aside, that one who could see farther than him- 
self into the sublime secrets of nature might 
minister as high-priest at her altar. That she 
should be revealed to those who sought her, 
that was the old man’s joy, let the revelation 
come through whom it would. 

But whoso would serve at that altar must 
wait long and patiently. Roger must show 
himself worthy of his work ; and this Mr. Arn- 
cliffe meant to give him the chance of doing 
by placing in his hands a slowly increasing re- 
sponsibility. A splendid order, the most splen- 
did order ever executed in England, had just 
been placed at the Woolsthorpe works ; a tele- 
scope was to be made for the French Institute 
of Science. It was to be a perfect instrument 
of its kind — perfect so far as money, skillful 
workmanship, and the highest available mathe- 
matical knowledge could make it perfect ; and 
to Mr. Arncliffe, out of all the practical astron- 
omers in Europe, had been intrusted the task 
of turning it out. It was a proud day for the 
old man when that order came from Paris. He 
had a genuine pride in his work ; he longed to 
have a Woolsthorpe telescope in every observa- 
tory in the world ; not that his little name 


might be graven upon it, but because he knew 
that no other instrument would serve its pur- 
pose so well. 

And now was the opportunity to give Roger, 
as Mr. Ballinger would say, an insight into the 
profession. He should see the whole process, 
from beginning to end; he should be at Mr. 
Arncliffe’s side during every hour which must 
be spent in that little inner office, making the 
intricate calculations necessary before the grind- 
ing of the glasses could be completed. Every 
step of the process should be made clear to 
him, for he was sufficiently advanced to under- 
stand it ; and when the. grand instrument was 
finished, so would be Roger’s education. 

The contract extended over three years. 
Mr. Arncliffe was not what is generally called 
a “ man of prayer,” but if the intensest, unself- 
ish longing of the heart be its truest voice to- 
ward God, then verily his whole life w r as in 
some sort an unspoken prayer ; and the prayer 
was this, that he might live to see his great 
work complete. If only he might be spared to 
carry his pupil step by step with him until, this 
perfect piece of workmanship having been fin- 
ished by them both, there was nothing further 
left to teach, he felt he could die content. He 
could leave Woolsthorpe then in Roger Monk- 
eston’s hands, satisfied that it would never fall 
from the reputation which he had made for it. 
He had no children of his own to think and care 
for. These engine-sheds, workshops, steam- 
lathes, these instruments slowly growing to per- 
fection under his eyes, were to him as his fami- 
ly, his household, and he had little interest left 
in life save to commit them to one who would 
be to them what he had been. 

So, a few weeks after the contract had been 
signed, he went over one evening to the little 
parlor behind the bow-windowed shop.. He oft- 
en found his way there now. Nothing pleased 
him better than to watch Brownie at her work, 
carving out those delicate leaves and buds, or 
copying some grand old Gothic design from 
Dr. Boniface’s cathedral books, to adapt it to 
her own purpose. Jean used to wonder often 
how it was that so many orders were sent to her 
from people — orders which kept her busy during 
all the hours which her health allowed her to 
give to work. She did not know that the library 
of Mr. Arncliffe’s old-fashioned house in Queen 
Anne Street, that quaint room where so many 
gray-haired savants u ed to meet, was almost 
filled with bits of her workmanship, and that 
the great folk coming there and admiring them 
were sent to a certain little bow-windowed shop 
in Cruxborough for duplicates. That was Mr. 
Arncliffe’s way of befriending people to whom 
he knew he could not offer help in a more di- 
rect way. Kindness, mere kindness, the Bal- 
mains and Ballingers said, hearing of it by 
chance. Very good of the eccentric old man ; 
there was really no telling what he might do 
for people he took to. 

And if sometimes, as the master of the Wools- 
thorpe works sat in Mrs. Monkeston’s parlor, 


54 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


watching Brownie at her work, the sharp, 
shrewd, practical look passed out of his face, 
and his gray eyes, resting on her, shone through 
almost a mist of tears, why, that was “mere 
kindness ” too ; pity that so fair a soul should 
hare so mean a dwelling-place ! Nothing more 
than that. 

“ Roger, boy, I want you out of the way to- 
night,” he said, coming in and finding the young 
man poring over some astronomical problems. 
“Could you clear out anywhere for half an 
hour ?” 

“All right, sir,” said Roger, very cheerfully, 
and he packed up his work, and strolled into 
the Close, soon, however, finding his way to 
the college yard, in the hope of catching sight 
of Gretchen behind the checked curtains of 
Mrs. Bratchet’s little room. 

When he had gone Mr. Arnclifife told Mrs. 
Monkeston what he meant to do. He repeat- 
ed the promise given ten years ago, that noth- 
ing but want of ability, or want of will on Rog- 
er’s part, should stop his progress in the edu- 
cation needed to place him in the front rank 
of his profession. His future was in his own 
hands, to make or mar it ; and whatever was 
possible to him of success might be realized, if 
only he would go on as he had begun. He 
mentioned the magnificent order which had 
been placed at the works, and his purpose with 
regard to it, to carry Roger through all the 
stages of its progress, so that he might be able 
to undertake a similar work on his own respon- 
sibility; and then, afterward, to give him a 
share in the profits of the works. 

“Not that heVto help me for nothing, though, 
all the time, you know, Mrs. Monkeston. I’m 
not going to serve myself out of such brains as 
his without paying him for it. What I came 
to tell you to-night is, that I am ready to offer 
him now one hundred and fifty a year, to be 
advanced as I see fit, until the close of the con- 
tract, and after that, if all goes fair, we will 
start afresh on a new track. But I thought I 
had better just settle it with yon before I had a 
talk with Roger himself about it.” 

The tears, which found their way there so 
seldom, came into Mrs. Monkeston’s eyes as 
she listened. Roger’s future was settled now. 
She had watched him all these years working 
quietly and steadily on, but to what end she 
could not quite see. Mr. Arncliffe might not 
care to keep him at the works. Having taught 
him his business, he might well think that 
enough, and so leave him to do the rest him- 
self. And how that rest was to be done, with- 
out means, without patronage, without influ- 
ence, Mrs. Monkeston sometimes wondered. 

And another anxiety had come to her. Of 
late she had felt her own health failing. The 
willing heart found no longer its equal helpmate 
in the strong right hand. The years of her 
wifehood and widowhood had been hard years, 
often bitter years, not such as to lay up for her 
an after-life of rest. Overwrought nature was 
now demanding its price for days of toil and 


nights of watchfulness ; demanding it in a slow, 
almost insensible lapse of power, easily meas- 
ured, though, by the slowly increasing differ- 
ence between what she could do now and what 
she could do when first she came to Cruxbor- 
ough. She was living on capital instead of in- 
terest, and the stock was daily diminishing. 

But Mrs. Monkeston was not a woman to 
complain. She did her work bravely. She 
had her reward — the only reward she ever prized 
— in her children’s love and reverence. When- 
ever death came, if they were only safe, she 
should not so greatly care. And now a fair fu- 
ture had opened for Roger, and through him 
for Jean ; for was not she to be his dependent 
all through life? They would be able to do 
without her soon. Then she might lie down 
and rest ! 

Mr. Arncliffe saw the tears shining in her 
eyes. 

“ Never mind, never mind,” he said, gruffly; 
“ don’t begin to thank me. I don’t want that. 
It isn’t what I came for. I’ve been looking 
out these ten years for a man to suit me, and 
I’ve hit upon him in your son Roger, so it’s as 
much to my side of the road as yours. I dare 
say we shall make it all square some time before 
long. You know, I’m getting an old man now, 
and it’s time I began to shift a little of the bur- 
den off. If he can take it, why where are the 
thanks to come from ? Now I’ll be off. We’ll 
talk it over to-morrow when he comes to the 
works. Good-bye, both of you.” 

But after he had said it he lingered, watch- 
ing Jean’s face, full now of a quiet sisterly joy. 
Plain ! who called the girl plain ? What sweet- 
er eyes could a man wish to look into, so only 
he could find his own love reflected there ? 

“Good-bye, Brownie,” he said, letting his 
hand rest for a while on her soft hair. “ I won- 
der what the gods would have turned you into 
if you had lived in their time.” 

“A woodpecker, most likely,” said Jean, 
looking up at him with a demure smile, “ and 
I should have bored foliated tracery in all the 
bark I could find. But, Mr. Arncliffe, how 
good you are to us !” And now the tears rose 
in Jean’s eyes too. 

“Oh, let that alone!” said Mr. Arncliffe, 
making a hasty start for the door. And yet 
he could have looked into the eyes so long. 

“What a foolish old man !” he said to him- 
self, as he went back to his two little rooms at 
the Woolsthorpe works. And they seemed so 
lonely. 

As he went out of the room Mrs. Bratchet 
came in. Ever since that conversation with 
Patch about old Hiram Armstrong she had 
had it on her mind to say something to Mrs. 
Monkeston. For though, as she said to her- 
self, it was none of her business to find out 
what folks had and what they had not, yet she 
thought there was nothing contrary to sound 
doctrine in telling them their neighbor’s opin- 
ions thereupon. Accordingly, having half an 
hour to spare after taking out her basket of 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


clothes, she spent it in “ overing” to Mrs.Monk- 
eston the gist of Patch’s story, with a few little 
notes and comments of her own. 

“Ah,” she said, as Mrs. Monkeston gave an 
emphatic denial to the whole statement, at least 
so far as any advantage ever reaped by herself 
from the seed of old Hiram’s good intentions, 
“I said it was all a make-up. Not as Patch 
’ud ever tell a story, not if she knowed it, for 
she’s as true as the daylight, for as queer as 
she looks sometimes, and never goes past what 
she’s a right to say ; but I telled her there was 
many a man washed his sins out in liquor and 
then never thought no more about ’em, and 
that must have been the way with him. He 
was a man as was always in two minds night 
and morning, was Armstrong. And I telled 
her, too, as you wouldn’t have humbled yourself 
to ha’ took his money, no, not if he’d gone down 
on his bended knees to ask you, and him the 
sort he was. Says I to her, ‘Patch,’ says I, 
1 Mrs. Monkeston isn’t one to let a man put the 
meat into her pie. She’ll eat it as she makes 
it, and no other way, and I respect her for it ;’ 
yes, ma’am, and so I do, and I wouldn’t mind 
if all Cruxborough heard me say it.” 

And with that Mrs. Bratchet made her courte- 
sy and went away. 

“Mother, it is q curious story, ’’said Jean, 
when they were alone again. 

“ My child, say nothing more of it to any 
one. I wish it left.” 

And Jean obeyed. 


CHAPTER XX. 

Then came bright golden days for Roger, 
days of hope and joy and promise. To work 
and to wait, how easy both seemed now, with 
that sunny future so far off, but so sure. How 
glad he was now that he had listened to the 
voice which bade him be strong ; that he wait- 
ed for the fruit to ripen before he plucked it. 
With what new courage, too, he went forth to 
his work ! Mr. Arncliffe had given him that 
word of praise which, to an honest heart, is like 
the clear shining after rain. His life lay clear- 
ly before him; he knew what he had to do. He 
felt within him strength to do it. His work was 
his delight. Not daily bread only, but keen, 
healthy pleasure he won from it. Even with- 
out the sweet thought of Gretchen over all, he 
could have toiled on bravely enough among 
those plans and problems and calculations ; but 
with that thought to help him there seemed 
nothing for which he was too weak. 

And now, too, he might venture to say to 
her what hitherto had only been told in many 
a long, close hand-clasp and lingering look, 
which surely Gretchen could not fail to inter- 
pret. And Roger was taking thought within 
himself how best to do this, one night as they 
came home together from the choir practice. 
He never failed now to wait for her as she came 


down the stair alone — always alone, for could 
the respectable young ladies of Cruxborough 
be expected to stop in public and talk to a girl 
who was employed at ten shillings a week in 
the Woolsthorpe lacquering-rooms ? 

“What shall you wear at the Festival, 
Gretchen ?” he said, by way of beginning the 
conversation ; for Gretchen, with true feminine 
curiosity, was taking note of the young ladies’ 
dresses, some of them immensely fashionable, 
which poured out into the High Street from the 
little practicing-room. “You know the chorus 
girls always wear something nice.” 

“Do they?” she answered, naively ; “then 
I must wear something nice too. I have my 
festa dress, that you do know already. The 
Frau Bratchet has promised to wash for me the 
muslin bodice, but I have nothing for my hair. 
I must be content. Fraulein Monkeston says 
it wants not that I should add to it.” 

“ Gretchen, would you” — and Roger’s voice 
trembled as he proffered this, his first love-gift 
— “ would you wear it, if I bought you a ribbon 
for your hair ?” 

Gretchen drooped her bright head a little. 
But she w*as not considering whether it would 
be “proper” to receive gifts from a strange 
gentleman, she was only wondering how she 
shor .ook with a bright new ribbon twined 
amc..g those rippling waves of gold. Appar- 
ently the prospect pleased her, for she looked 
up into his face eagerly, and said, 

“ Ah, that would be good ! But, you know, 
it must be only blue ; just so bright as — what 
can I say to make you understand how it 
should be bright ? Look, do you see that Frau- 
lein’s bonnet ?” 

Roger looked; it was Miss Matilda Bal- 
linger, who, escorted by the new Mr. Arm- 
strong of Wastewood, swept majestically past 
them, with a glance that seemed to skim along 
the top of Gretchen’s blue woolen hood — no 
farther. 

“It must.be just like that, for so is my festa 
dress, and you know it must be that they are 
alike. Will you, perhaps, remember — or, stay, 
will it not be safe that I bring you ein Stiickchen , 
a little piece of my dress ? I will somewhere 
cut it out, and then you will be quite right.” 

“That’s ever so much better,” said Roger, 
delighted at the idea of having a little scrap of 
any thing that Gretchen had actually worn. 
“ I shall give you a ribbon exactly like it, and 
there will not be any one in the whole place 
that will look prettier than the little Gretchen. 
Not even the fine ladies.” 

Gretchen gave herself a slight, impatient 
twitch. 

“ You must not say to me that. I shall look 
just like what I truly am, a Stuttgart peasant 
maiden. I do not wish to be an imitation lady. 
It does surprise me that in your country every 
one does try to look like something else. You 
have but one dress for your great ladies, and 
one just the same, only, ach ! so dirty, for your 
Bauerinnen, your people who are no ladies at 


56 


THE BLUE EIBBON. 


all. I would not know myself in Stuttgart if 
I looked like a- dirty Edelfrau ! I like better 
that I should be what I am. But, ach , Himmelt 
what do I see ?” 

And Gretchen, starting, came to a sudden 
halt. They had turned the corner of a street, 
and were in front of one of the great music- 
shops. It was closed now, but at the side of it, 
lighted by a lamp opposite, was a huge placard, 
containing in gilded and illuminated capitals 
the names of the artists who were to appear at 
the Festival, together with a long list of patrons, 
presidents, and stewards. 

“What’s the matter, Gretchen ?” said Roger, 
who always knew that something had happen- 
ed, or that she was very much interested if she 
spoke in her own country language. “ Has any 
thing hurt you ? What can you see ? Tell me. ” 

For she stood rigid, and the color had gone 
out of her face, and her hands were tightly 
clenched upon his arm. “ Sehen Sie ! Was 
soil ich thun ? Look there, then ?” 

Roger looked. There was the great pla- 
card, with the royal arms in scarlet at the top, 
and the Cruxborough arms in blue and gold a 
little lower down, and a list of names, varying 
in size from six inches to a foot, according to 
the respective merits of their owners. Enough, 
certainly, to provoke exclamation from a simple 
country girl, who had never seen any thing of 
the kind before. No wonder that Gretchen 
seemed rooted to the spot. Doubtless at Stutt- 
gart they did not do things so grandly. 

“ Oh, that’s nothing,” he said, much relieved. 
“You’ll see the bills ever so much bigger than 
that before the Festival really comes. They 
have them at all the street corners, and the 
great singers’ names keep growing bigger and 
bigger, until they’re as long as your arm. I 
wonder how it feels to see one’s name all that 
size. And, look, there’s our choir in, right 
down at the bottom. I’m glad they’ve put us 
in. Mr. Grant’s choir.” 

“Yes,” said Gretchen, absently. 

“You don’t half know how grand it is,” 
Roger continued. “ The best places are in the 
nave, where the people pay ever so much ; and 
when they are all there it looks just like one 
great flower-bed. You know you can see them 
quite well from the chorus seats. I was never 
in the chorus but once, when I was a little boy, 
just after we came to Cruxborough, for at the 
last Festival my voice was nowhere at all ; but 
I can remember it quite well, and when the 
great singers came in, we all stood up to give 
them a welcome, because in the Minster they 
don’t let you clap or stamp; and when the 
people in the nave got up it w r as as if an im- 
mense hot-house was moving, there was such a 
waft of perfume and glare of color. And then 
there was a great silence, and the singing be- 
gan. Gretchen, when it begins this time, you 
and I will be listening together.” 

“Do the great singers stay all the time?” 
said Gretchen, taking no notice of this last re- 
mark. 


“Yes; they have grand seats put for them 
in the very front of the orchestra, and they 
stay, but they do not always sing, only when it 
comes to their solo parts.” 

“And where do we sit?” Gretchen asked, 
that restless look beginning to quiver in her 
blue eyes. But why should she not be rest- 
less, Roger thought, at the prospect of singing 
in the Festival chorus at Cruxborough Min- 
ster? Was it not more than even he could 
picture to himself without a thrill of triumph- 
ant excitement ? 

“ Oh, we sit back ever so far — the trebles in 
the middle, and the altos and tenors and basses 
on each side, where the conductor can see us 
all.” 

“And the great singers, too? can they see 
us?” 

“ Oh no, you needn’t be afraid. They can’t 
see us a bit unless they turn round to look ; 
and they never do turn round, because of course 
they don’t care. They never take any notice 
of the chorus at all, except that when they first 
come in they make a bow to us, and sometimes 
smile very nicely if we look pleased when we 
rise to receive them ; then the overture begins, 
and they don’t see us any more.” 

“But in the — how do } r ou call it? — the in- 
tervallen, when we are tired, and we must have 
our glass of wine, and every one does go out, 
do we not somewhere meet them ?” 

“Well, perhaps you might just come across 
one of them, particularly in the Minster, where 
they don’t have artists’ rooms, like a regular 
concert hall; but I am sure you needn’t be 
afraid. Evert if they do happen to see you, 
they never take any notice. You know we 
are only very little people, Gretchen, you and 
I, and most of the other chorus singers, and 
they are very great people. It is not worth 
their while to think about us.” 

“Yes,” said Gretchen, thoughtfully, “I do 
know that well. My mother told me it was 
so. And now we have come to the Frau 
B ratchet’s house, I shall say to you good- 
night.” 

“Nay, Gretfchen, let us have a little walk 
round the Minster — it is so pleasant in the 
moonlight.” 

And Roger would have drawn her hand un- 
der his arm again, but she stood apart. It 
seemed to him that some subtle influence was 
between them to-night — he could not come 
close to her. And for those other words — he 
could find no way to say them. 

“I like not to go with you this night. Once 
again it will perhaps be that you ask me will I 
walk with you around the Minster, and then I 
will say yes.” 

“And the ribbon, Gretchen?” 

“Ah, the ribbon ! I had forgotten. When 
I do come to my work to-morrow, I will try 
that I remember to bring you a little piece of 
my festa dress, and you will choose for me that 
same color. I say good-night.” 

Roger turned from her with the weight of 


57 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


love’s unspoken longing and reverence at his 
heart, and slowly took his way homeward to 
work out the problems which must be ready for 
Mr. Arncliffe next morning. But Gretchen, 
when he had left her, turned and fled away, 
never stopping until she had reached the mu- 
sic-shop where the Festival placard still shone 
resplendent in the lamp-light. There she stood, 
with pale cheeks and clenched hands and rig- 
idly-staring eyes, taking no heed of the people 
who passed her by, some speaking to her inso- 
lently, some with rude admiration, for not oft- 
en so fair a girl, and so simple and so modest, 
stood there in the silent, almost deserted streets, 
alone. Nor did she turn away till the Minster 
bell struck ten, and a policeman, flashing his 
lantern in her face, asked her respectfully if 
she was waiting there for some one. Then 
she gathered her cloak round her and went 
slowly home, murmuring to herself, in an un- 
derbreath, 

“He said that the singers were very great 
people, and we are very little people. Ah, he 
needed not to tell me that. I do know it well. 
I do know it so well.” 

4 


CHARTER XXI. 

Next morning found Roger Monkeston at 
his bench in the finishing-room, blithe and gay 
as a mavis in early spring-time. Gretchen 
. r «s still working with the rest of the lacquer- 
ing-girls, and would do so until the end of the 
week, when she was to have a few days’ holi- 
day for the Festival, and after that enter upon 
her new work for Mrs. Monkeston. 

Roger, as soon as he had got his tools into 
order, broke out into “Graceful Consort,” 
which was generally now his morning greet- 
ing to Gretchen behind the partition. He 
paused for her to take up her part, but there 
was no response, so he had to sing the whole 
air through by himself. When he had finish- 
ed, the well-known voice began, but with no 
joyous carol in its tones. Tenderly, regretful- 
ly, Gretchen sang the German ballad, begin- 
ning, 

“ Herz, meiu Herz, warum so traurig !” 

At times there was a passion of sadness about 
it, at times a wail almost of despair. When 
it was ended, she went off into a mocking song 
full of wild, make-believe gladness, which for 
Roger had no music in it at all. That was 
not like Gretchen. He had never known her 
to do so before. But perhaps the Frau Brat- 
ehet had been catechising her again about her 
“spiritual interests,” and the girl was begin- 
ning to feel either anxious or impatient. He 
remembered how, the last time that excellent 
woman brought home the clothes from the 
wash, she had come into the room rubbing her 
hands with a view to conversation ; and being 
asked to sit down, had taken occasion to tell 


Mrs. Monkeston that she had been exercised 
of late about Gretchen’s religious state ; and 
most likely she had been bearing down rather 
strongly upon the girl in that direction, in which 
case poor Gretchen might well be exercised 
too. At least, that was the only explanation 
Roger could give to himself. 

He waited eagerly for the twelve o’clock bell, 
and hurried to the corridor, that he might be 
there before she could have had time to slip 
away. He need not have hurried. She was 
the last of the girls to leave the lacquering- 
room, and she came with slow, lingering step, 
tying on her woolen hood. 

“Where is it?” he said, eagerly. 

“Where is what?” asked Gretchen, lifting to 
him a wondering, puzzled face. 

“That little bit of blue stuff you were to 
bring me — the little bit of your festa dress. 
You know you promised me it last night, that 
I might get some ribbon the right color.” 

“ Last night ? Was it only last night, then ? 
And it does seem to me such a long time ago. 
I am so sorry I have forgotten.” 

“Well, never mind; you can bring it this 
afternoon. Will you try to remember it this 
afternoon? You know there are not many 
days now before the Festival, and I want you 
to have it in time. But why do you look tired, 
Gretchen, and why would you not sing to me 
this morning ?” 

She shook her head. 

“ I have been sad. I have thoughts of my 
people who love me. I would I could be at 
home in my own country.” 

The lacquering-girls had all gone now. Rog- 
er and Gretchen stood alone in the corridor. 
He took her hand, and would have drawn her 
very close to him ; but though the girl let her 
hand stay in his, she kept still apart. 

“What has troubled you, Gretchen ? tell me? 
Has Mrs. Bratchet been unkind to you ? What 
makes you want to go home ?” 

“ Oh no ; the Frau Bratchet is very good. 
She did make a long prayer for me this morn- 
ing when I told her it was Heimweh made me 
sad. I could not say it to her in English, for 
you have no word to mean it ; and she did 
bring me a peppermint-lozenge, and said it 
would do for me all I needed — fake away my 
pain. How, then, can I talk to her when she 
does not know ? But she is very good, and she 
gives me porridge when I am tired. And I 
will try that I bring you the piece of blue this 
afternoon, and perhaps I shall forget and be 
happy again. Lebexcohl — that is, what you call 
farewell.” 

“ But you are not going away, Gretchen, and 
you need not say farewell.” 

“No,” she answered, musingly. “I must 
do my work and earn my money, and then 
some day in the long years I shall be quiet at 
home again. But the Frau Bratchet will say 
I keep her, that her dinner waits. You are 
very good ; I will think of you always, because 
you are kind to me as one of my own people.”. 


58 


THE BLUE BIBB ON. 


And with a smile like faint sunshine through 
mist, Gretchen kissed her hand to him and 
went away. 

In the evening, when the people were leaving 
•work, he waited for her at the great entrance ; 
she brought him the little piece of blue stuff. 

“It is a very little bit,” she said; “but I 
wanted to cut it out of my festa dress where it 
could not make an ugly mark. You know it 
must not be that I spoil my dress.” 

“And you have worn this yourself — it is 
really a piece of your own dress ?” said Roger, 
anxious to be sure that the Stiickchen , which 
he meant to keep always, had been really hal- 
lowed by Gretchen’s own wearing of it. 

“ Yes, but it is not faded; it looks still quite 
bright, so that will not make it to be worse. 
And the ribbon must be so wide as this — look.” 
And Gretchen marked off on the edge of Rog- 
er’s blouse two fingers’ breadth, and put pins 
into the place. “ You will not mind that I do 
so, will you, so that you may not at all forget ? 
And then look. I put it round my hair like 
this, as the peasant maidens do on the festa 
days.” 

And Gretchen, talking faster now, and with 
a little more animation, picked up a long strip 
of shaving and twined it in her hair, by way of 
showing Roger the effect. 

“You child!” he said, as she looked up to 
see if he quite understood, “ you would be pret- 
ty in any thing.” 

She dropped her eyes directly, and the old 
look of regret came back ; and then, as if re- 
membering something far back, she said, 

“Stay, I did hear those words before — 
1 Child, you would be pretty in any thing.’ ” 

“Very likely,” said Roger, half amused. 
“ I wonder who could help saying them, when 
they are so true.” 

“ Perhaps. And there are great people and 
little people; and the singers belong to the 
great people, and we belong to the little people. 
I did hear those words too.” 

“Whatever makes you think of that now?” 
Roger said, puzzled by this new manner, so 
different from Gretchen’s usual careless grace 
and freedom. “Did I vex you by saying you 
were one of the little people ? I am sorry. I 
did not mean it.” 

“Oh no,” and she put both her hands on 
his shoulder with a sort of quick gesture of re- 
proach, “ you did never at all grieve me. It is 
only that I remember and am sad.” 

“ But, Gretchen, I don’t want you to remem- 
ber and be sad ; I want you to be blight and 
happy ; for you are to sing at the Festival, and 
there is only one more practicing night before 
it. And I shall give you the blue ribbon as 
we come home together ; then next day I shall 
see you wear it. Do not be sad, little one. 
If you are far away from your own people who 
care for you, I think always of you myself, and 
I would not let any harm come to you if I 
could help it. I would make you always hap- 
py, Gretchen.” 


Her eyes were full of wonder and delight as 
she lifted them to his face. She took his hand 
in both hers, and laid her cheek upon it ; then, 
before he could say another of the tender words 
which were trembling upon his lips, she was 
away, lost in the darkness of the narrow, wind- 
ing streets. 

He saw her no more until the practice on 
the night before the Festival. She seemed to 
avoid him in going to and from work, and if 
her voice ever met his at all as they worked 
together, so near, yet so apart, there was a sad- 
ness and longing in it which troubled him, he 
could scarcely tell why. This Festival-time, 
he thought, must have recalled to her the gala 
days of her native town, in the years when she 
had been happy among her own people ; and 
he longed more than ever now, with the unself- 
ishness of that love which cares for giving only, 
to win this pained and memory-laden heart to 
his own, to fill it with its old gladness and re- 
pose, and make life for it again one song of 
sweet content. 

He waited for her as they came out of the 
singing-class on the last night of the practice. 
She -would have hurried past him again if he 
had not reached out his hand to stay her. 

“And how am I to give you the blue ribbon, 
Gretchen, if you run away from me in this 
way ?” 

“Oh, the blue ribbon! I had again forgot- 
ten — it is so good of you!” And Gretchen, 
unfolding the paper which he had laid in her 
hand, shook out the silken fillet, held it up* V 
the lamp-light, and put it to her cheek to feel 
its dainty softness. “I have never had any 
thing so beautiful. In the morning I shall 
wear it, when I do put on my festa dress, and 
you will know that I think of you.” 

“ That is right ; and shall I know, too, that 
you have given over remembering and being 
sad?” 

Gretchen sighed. 

“I know not any thing. I will try not to 
remember, if that pleases you, for you have 
been very good to me. Never can I forget 
how good you have been.” 

She had quite lost now that pretty uncon- 
scious brightness -which had so much charmed 
him at first. There was an air of preoccupa- 
tion about her. Her clear blue eyes brought 
themselves always as if from gazing upon some- 
thing far off to look into his face when he 
spoke to her. Yet perhaps she only charmed 
him more by this veil of regret, which showed 
a soul so tender and so affectionate. It was 
sweet that she should remember and be sad ; 
only it would have been sweeter still if smile 
of his could have chased aw’ay that sadness, 
and turned that remembrance into hope. 

“Stay with me a little longer to-night, 
Gretchen,” he pleaded, as they turned into the 
street which led into the college yard. “ There 
will be no more practicing now, and you prom- 
ised that you would one night walk with me 
round the Minster.” 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


59 


She turned, with no show of eagerness or 
pleasure, though. 

“Yes, once, but only once. The Frau 
Bratchet is to-night washing for me the white 
bodice that is to my festa dress, and she looks 
that I do help her to iron it when I come home 
from the practice. It is not good that Frau 
Bratchet should work for me while I do stay 
here for my own amusement.” 

“ If Frau Bratchet is a sensible woman she 
won’t like any thing half so well as to work for 
you,” said Roger, as he took her hand, and led 
her back again toward the Minster. It was 
late, very late, and the full moon, newly risen, 
peeped through the old houses of the Close, and 
tipped with its gray light here and there the 
crumbling apostles and martyrs, who, with 
palm branches and ungirded robes, stood in 
their niches around the south door. 

How that little touch of homeliness endeared 
Gretchen to him ! How pleasant a glimpse it 
gave him into the goodness of that honest 
heart, which could not be content to rest while 
others toiled ! How bright a hope it set before 
him of the coming days, when that careful 
thought might be for him, and when his whole 
life should be one long, loving thought of her ! 

“Don’t you enjoy this, Gretchen?” he said, 
as they walked slowly — very slowly — down the 
southern side of the Minster, watching how the 
moonlight, creeping ever higher and higher, 
touched pinnacle after pinnacle, spire after 
spire, with its gray gleam, until at last it reach- 
ed the great rose window, and played there in 
a faint pearly flicker, forever changing and re- 
arranging, as leaf after leaf caught its shaft of 
light. “ Ish’t this better than being in Mrs. 
Bratchet’s little room ?” 

“Yes; I have very often walked here by 
myself, and always it has done me good. I 
love those old churches. At Stuttgart we 
have one church, where I have sung, and it has 
seemed that heaven was not far off.” 

“It never is when you are singing,” said 
Roger. 

“Perhaps not. I think not,” she answer- 
ed, not seeing w r hat he meant. “ Music is my 
speech w'herewith I talk to my Lord. The 
Frau Bratchet says I should pray more, and 
she does pray aloud for me, and she shouts to 
make the Lord come down and listen to her. 
And then I tell her that I speak to him in my 
song, and she does shake her head and lift up 
her hands, and she says there is in it nothing 
saving for my soul. The Frau Bratchet is very 
good ; we do not speak the same language, but 
she does take much care for me, and she wash- 
es for me my festa bodice until it is far better 
than quite new ; and when I am tired she will 
not let me work ; and for people to be kind to 
me is a language I do always understand. And 
you, too, you give me this ribbon of himmelblau , 
and you say you do place me in your thoughts, 
you who are so clever and so brave, and with 
so wonderful a Geist in you. How better could 
you and Frau Bratchet be if you were ever so 


great peoples ? Why should not this goodness 
make us all alike ?” 

“It does, Gretchen; at least it will, some 
day. But what have we to do with it ? You 
and I are both of the little peoples, as you call 
them ; we don’t have to cross over any great 
gulf to meet each other.” 

“True, but I w'as remembering of other 
times.” 

They had come now to the great west door, 
above which was the sculptured figure of the 
Christ, so calm in its everlasting strength, so 
divine in its majesty of repose, so human in 
its love, as it gazed with sad, grave face down 
upon the crowds who, coming and going, forever 
passed it by. And at its feet was a scroll with 
these words : 

“ Come unto me, and I will give you rest.” 

Gretchen paused for a while, looking upward 
to the grand still face, and outward to the dusky 
sky. And all w r as so silent ; no sound but their 
own voices, and the wail of the west wind 
through the belfry towers. 

“How different it will be!” she said, after 
that pause, in which she and Roger had drawn 
very near to each other. “ No silence, no rest, 
and no stars in the sky ; only the great ladies 
in their fine clothes, and the carnages driving 
about, and the bells ringing, and so much 
joy and gladness everywhere. But that face 
will be still the same, and it will speak, ‘ Come, 
and I will give you rest;’ only they will not care 
to come. How life is strange and wonderful!” 

Roger, whose nature was of an entirely prac- 
tical and scientific turn, felt somewhat bewil- 
dered as Gretchen thus thought aloud. He 
was not much given to mental processes which 
did not work out some tangible result. He 
needed not to stand under the shadow of a 
cathedral, in the dusky gloom of an autumn 
night, to feel that life was strange and wonder- 
ful. He had found that out long ago, and his 
work was to make it less strange ; less wonder- 
ful it never could be made. And he wanted 
to bring Gretchen down too, out of this dim 
dream-world. 

“Yes, every thing will be different to-mor- 
row. It will be all color and brightness and 
beauty. This is the door where all the grand 
people come in ; they look to me like little 
bees swarming into a hive, but I dare say they 
think themselves a great deal more than that. 
And at the south door, the five-shilling people 
go in, and we, the chorus singers, go in at the 
east door, just opposite my mother’s house ; 
and the greatest of all, the singers, the artists, 
enter through the Chapter House.” 

“ Where ?” said Gretchen, no dreaminess in 
her face now. “How? Show me just the 
place.” 

“There,” and Roger pointed to it. “We 
will go round to it, if you like. You see that 
little dark door-way ; that leads into the Chap- 
ter House vestibule, and from there to the or- 
chestra, where we shall be in our places, ready 
to stand up and give them a welcome.” 


CO 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


“ What a little door, so narrow and so dark ! 
yet there the great ones do enter. I have 
heard the Frau Bratchet say something about 
one little narrow door ; but she says the great 
ones do not enter it, because they are so great. 
I must go to her now, or she will say that I 
have no thought for her, and that is not good. 
I will perhaps to-morrow morning speak to you 
in the music.” 

“And do not remember, Gretchen ; only be 
happy. I shall know if you are. Good-night.” 

“Aaf Wiedersehen. I see now a light shin- 
ing through the red curtains of your little room, 
where madame does always sit, and the Frau- 
lein makes brightness with her face, which is so 
sweet. And you go home to your mother and 
your sister, and I do go to the one little room, 
where there is no beauty, except that I shut 
my eyes and make it. Lebewohl .” 

And she went away. 


-» .7 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Patch had given up work ; she always did 
when any musical event was about to happen 
in Cruxborough. 

“If that woman has to starve for it,” Mrs. 
Bratchet used to say, “ she’ll contrive to be at 
a loose end when there’s a bit o’ music going 
on in the place, and as uneasy as a spinning-jen- 
ny, into the bargain — here and there and every- 
where — while you never know where you have 
her. I can’t square her up nohow. She’s a 
mystery to me, and that’s just it.” 

So she was to other people. Visitors, throng- 
ing the station as the Festival drew on, wonder- 
ed at the gaunt, dark-faced woman, oddly yet 
so picturesquely dressed, who passed restlessly 
up and down the platform, peering in at the 
carriage windows, loitering among the piles of 
luggage to catch sight of the names upon them, 
or standing at the doors of the refreshment- 
rooms, eagerly scanning the faces of the men, 
many of them foreigners, who passed her by. 
Harmlessly insane, most likely, they thought, 
and now and then one more charitable than 
the rest would drop a piece of silver into her 
hand. 

Patch had changed her lodgings since Gret- 
chen went to be with Mrs. Bratchet, and for 
the last few weeks had rented a room in the 
house of a decent poor woman, whose husband 
was a guard on one of the London trains. That 
served her purpose well, for when he -was off 
duty she picked up many a piece of informa- 
tion from him about the ins or outs of the lines 
or the trains that certain sorts of people came 
in by; though he, being an honest, simple- 
hearted sort of man, knew as little as any one 
else why she haunted the place. For amuse- 
ment, perhaps ; though Daniel thought she heard 
enough, surely, of clash and clang and clamor 
at the Woolsthorpe works, to satisfy any ordi- 
nary woman. However, it was no concern of 


his, so long as she paid her rent regularly and 
kept decent hours — which she always did. 

When she was not waiting for the London 
trains, she would prowl about the Minster and 
the assembly-rooms, where preparations had 
long been going on for the Festival. She had 
already made friends with some of the carpen- 
ters for the purpose of learning from them what 
were the different arrangements, by what doors 
the various ticket-holders would enter, where 
the rooms were being fitted up for the artists 
and chorus singers, and at which entrance the 
solo singers would be set down. Before the 
morning of the Festival few people in Crux- 


borough, except the stewards themselves, knew 


more about what was going to be done than 
Patch. 

One piece of work only she reserved for her- 
self, and that was the carrying out of Mrs. 
Bratchet’s baskets of clean linen to the differ- 
ent hotels for which that most indefatigable of 


washer-women exercised her calling. She was 
never tired of being sent to the “ Cruxborough 
Arms,” which, being very near both to the ca- 
thedral and the assembly-rooms, was generally 
occupied by the singers who came for any mu- 
sical occasion, and whose principal suites of 
rooms were now engaged by the leading Festi- 
val artists. Patch would loiter about for hours 
among the servants here, gleaning, from them 
such information as they were willing to give 
her. Little by little she found out from them 
when the singers were expected, what rooms 
were set apart for them, where the great priina 
donna , whose praises were on every lip, would 
be lodged, and what aspect the private sitting- 
room had which the valet of the’grand basso, 
Signor Notturino, had chosen for his master. 
And if the waiters looked curiously at her 
sometimes, as if wondering why she, a washer- 
woman’s drudge and a lacquering hand in the 
Woolsthorpe works, cared to know so much of 
the ways .and doings of the great musical world, 
she would snap her fingers in their faces, shrug 
her shoulders, and, throwing herself into an at- 
titude, execute a brilliant Italian cadenza. 

“ There, then, listen to that ! I could sing 
as well as any of them in my time, before this 
stupid English fog of yours took away my voice, 
and I had nobody to help me ; so here I am. 
But I have not forgotten.” 

But at night, when she went home to her lit- 
tle drab-washed bedroom, in Daniel’s cottage, 
she would sit for hours with bent brows and 
tightly-pressed lips, and she would mutter to 
herself, 

“So long — so long ! But my time will come ! 
Our blessed lady send that he find not the poor 
child again!” 

For going often as she did to Mrs. Bratchet’s, 
she had not failed to note Gretchen’s altered 
manner as the Festival drew on ; the alternate 
fits of restlessness, excitement, and depression 
which came over her, so different from her usu- 
al light-heartedness ; how a sharp word would 
bring the tears to her eves; how Mrs. Brat- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


chet’s long prayers made her tremble with half- 
hysterical impatience; how, if a question were 
asked about Stuttgart, and the Conservatoire 
there, her color would change, a restless light 
would come into her eyes, and she would say, 
with petulant weariness, 

“Ach! why, then, do you make me remem- 
ber?” 

Patch laid it all up, pondering over it much, 
but speaking no word. Had she not herself 
once loved and suffered and been forsaken ? 

And now the great day had really come, and 
bells were ringing, and flags were flying, and 
from early morning-time crowds of gayly-dress- 
ed people had been thronging the south door 
of the Minster, ready, when it was opened, to 
make a desperate rush for the best places they 
could find. And, later in the day, the upper- 
ten of Cruxborough, the cream of society, who, 
having paid for reserved seats, were relieved 
from the selfish necessity of crushing each oth- 
er like those vulgar ten-shilling excursionists, 
swept leisurely, supreme in velvet and satin, 
through the great west entrance, smiling to 
each other most graciously, but lifting no up- 
ward look to the grand, still Face, whose infi- 
mte cor;p?r,sion and love they needed not, full 
rted as they were. And Patch, 
d light in her eye, crouched, like 
wild creature in her solitary cor- 
i 3 little door of the Chapter House, 
aching, while no face with divine 
'.'vc and pity looked down upon her, 
the lean, battered gurgoyles, hideous 
g, unclean spirits driven forth from 
: >y prayer of priest or saint within. 

' was to go to Mrs. Monkeston’s 
q iie ear . the morning, to have a quiet day 
len Jean w r as to help her to dress 
for tiic J-Y i val performance, which began at 
t ee v . J can had taken her up now into 
tic,. room, where a bright fire was burn- 

ing, ai.u tad drawn up a low easy-chair, and 
made the girl rest there, if rest she could, with 
those burning cheeks and bright eyes. 

“Poor child! it will make you ill if you 
can not be quiet,” said Jean, taking her hands, 
which were quite cold, and gently chafing 
them. “Now we will talk of something else. 
Do not think any more of the Festival, and 
where you will sit, and whether the great sing- 
ers can see you. Roger told you that you need 
not be afraid. They will never turn to look at 
you. You little one, you will be lost, like a 
blue violet in some great full-colored nosegay, 
and only Roger will listen for your voice, be- 
cause he loves it so. Come, now, I will tell 
you of a thought that I have been thinking.” 

“I listen,” said Gretchen, meekly, trying to 
choke down a great sob of excitement. 

“Which do you love best, to be with Mrs. 
Bratchet in her little room, where she does 
her washing ; or to be in the shop here, as my 
mother is now, and in the evenings sit >vith us 
in the little parlor down stairs, read, and sing, 
and play, and be as one of ourselves ?” 


Gl 

Gretchen shrugged her shoulders. There 
was infinite expression in the shrug. 

“Ask me do I love best the sunshine in my 
own Stuttgart, or the fog that does always close 
this city of yours. Ask me do I love best the 
music in the Domkirche when the Herr Monkes- 
ton does sing, or the barrel-organs that grind 
the edges off my teeth ; then ask me do I lowe 
best to be with the Frau Bratchet or with you 
and madame, who are so kind to me. Ja wold! 
do I so much love the starch-bowl, then, that I 
must ask myself is it better than to be with 
you?” 

“ Well, then, Gretchen, I have been talking 
to my mother about it, and she says she would 
like you to come and live with us always. And 
you need not be afraid that we shall call it 
charity, because you will be earning your own 
living all the time. My mother is not so strong 
now ; she can not be always in the shop, and it 
is a waste of time for me to be there, because I 
can make so much more by my wood-carving. 
And besides — ” 

Jean looked across to the little glass over the 
mantle -piece, where Gretchen’s golden curls 
and rose and lily face, and rounded, supple 
form, made so strange a contrast with her own 
shrunken brown little self. 

“It is not well; I am not made for that. 
But still my mother wants some one to help her 
there, and w'e have been thinking that perhaps 
you might like to come; and you should be 
w r ell paid, and you could still sew and knit as 
you sat there, so that you might perhaps earn 
money enough to pay Mr. Grant for teaching 
you music. And then at night we should all 
be together, and we would read and sing, or 
you and I could be here together, and perhaps 
I could teach you to do wood-carving, while 
Roger is busy over his work for Mr. Arncliffe. 
And you should be to me as my sister. Would 
not that be good ?” 

Jean’s womanly tact had succeeded. Instead 
of wild, flushed excitement, a smile broke over 
Gretchen’s face as this sweet' picture of home- 
life painted itself before her. She took Jean’s 
hands and kissed them again and again, while 
a soft rain of tears cooled her hot cheeks. 

“Ah, Fraulein ! how you are good and kind 
to me ! That you should ask me to be at home 
with you where all is so beautiful, and that I 
should be to you as your sister. Will I work, 
then ? Ah, madame shall see how my hands 
shall be full of help to her, and I will try that 
she shall be no more tired ; and for das Geld, I 
will not ask for it at all. It is enough that I 
am with you. And for the Frau Bratchet’s 
washing-tubs, and always the soap and the; 
starch and the wet clothes, I shall have to look 
upon the good, grave face of madame, and the 
little room where all is so fair. Ah, my moth- 
er ! why do you not know how happy I am ?” 

“Why not, I wonder,” said Jean, brightly; 
“ we w ill write and tell her all about it. Only 
wait until this great Festival that w*e are all 
wild about is over, and you are quite settled 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


G2 

| here, and then we will write ever such a long 
j letter. It will be a festival for her, too, will it 
| not, when she knows you are happy ?” 

But Gretchen’s tears were her only answer 
| as she knelt down and hid her face in Jean’s 
: lap. 

“Ah, Fraulein!” she said, by-and-by, putting 
back her glory of golden hair, “ how she will 
bless you who have been so good to me ! I 
I wpuld I could have staid with her, because she 
1 is feeble and poor ; but by her own will she 
j brought it that I should come away. And the 
j Herr Monkeston, will he perhaps permit me 
■ that I do sometimes something for him, that I 
1 do mend for him his linen or his gloves, or 
i that when he is tired I sing to him ? He gives 
me this silken ribbon of Himmelsblau , and he 
I says he does place me often in his thoughts, 
i and he does take care of me when I walk alone 
| through the dark streets ; and for all this I yet 
I do for him nothing, not one thing. That is 
not as I would have it. My mother taught me 
j it should be that I do something, and not only 
to speak that I am grateful.” 

Jean looked at the young girl kneeling at 
her feet, so fair, so simple, so unconscious of 
that treasure hidden for her in her great gift 
' of song and greater gift of beauty ; and she 
doubted not that sooner or later there would 
i come a way for Gretchen to return the kindness 
| which was so deeply felt. Jean Monkeston 
i was a good, sensible girl ; but she had the be- 
' lief, common to all English women, that that 
brother of hers need only ask and have. That 
, Roger could love and not be loved again was 
a chance which had never yet pictured itself to 
her imagination. 

“You shall do what you will, Gretchen, 

1 when we are all at home together ; and now 
J you must begin to get ready. I want you to 
look as nice in your kirtle and bodice as all the 
I imitation ladies, as you call them, in their new 
! silken finery. See, some of the chorus singers 
have already begun to gather at the little east 
door.” 

“Have they?” Said Gretchen, peering 
through the muslin blind. But she never 
looked to the east door, only away to the Chap- 
i ter House, where the great singers were to go 
I in. A few people were clustering round it 
now, waiting for the carriages to draw up. 

Then came the dressing ; and what could 
Gretchen do but forget when Jean twined for 
her the Himmelsblau ribbon in her soft hair, 
and drew on the clear muslin bodice, which 
: seemed made on purpose to show the delicate 
fairness of the neck and bosom gleaming be- 
neath it. And the black kirtle, laced up in 
front with bright blue, and fastened with a knot 
of ribbon, swelled in such graceful curves over 
the rounded figure ; and there were white 
stockings now, peeping under the woolen petti- 
coat, and buckled shoes ; and, last of all, there 
was the little pouch to be slung round and 
coquettishly looped in among the folds of the 
dress ; and then Gretchen stood forth, surely 


the prettiest German peasant girl that ever 
stepped across church threshold since Mar- 
guerite, so passing, won the heart of Faust, 
and found it so fatal a winning. 

“I think I do look very nice,” she said, 
simply, as Jean led her up to the glass. “ I 
have never seen myself all overlike this before. 
At the Frau Bratchet’s I have but one small 
glass that I do see half my face, and then 
afterward the other half, and it makes me that 
I look very queer. Now I am not queer at 
all. Ah, Fraulein ! how you do make me 
happy! The Frau Bratchet is very good, but 
she does not make me happy. I do not un- 
derstand her speech. And she said this rib- 
bon, which the Herr Monkeston did give me, 
was of the world, and I had better have put 
the money into the mission-box which she has 
upon her little table. And then I told her I 
did not give out the money for it myself, it was 
a gift ; and she looked more stern at me, and 
asked who did give me it ; and I was angry, 
and I would not tell her. Therefore she said 
she would read to me to-night about w r hat is 
vanity.” 

“ The Frau Bratchet is a very good woman,” 
said Jean, smoothing out a crease in the mus- 
lin bodice ; “but she can not see that you are 
different from other people. She means well, 
though, and you must be patient for a little 
while.” 

“Oh yes. I am very good, and I do al- 
ways remember to say my prayers,” said Gret- 
chen, demurely, turning her pretty head at the 
same time to see the effect of the blue ribbon. 
“But I think it is very nice, what the Frau 
Bratchet calls vanity.” 

And then the blue-hooded cloak was put 
carefully on, and Gretchen came down to Rog- 
er, who was waiting for her at the foot of the 
stairs with her music ; and they went across to 
the east door, Jean looking after them all the 
time. There was no place for her to-day at the 
great Festival, no place for her anywhere, but 
in the quietness and shadow of home ! 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

“ Such a nuisance ! Did you ever know 
any thing so provoking ? A special messenger 
from London this morning to say that he can 
not come until next day. People say lie’s the 
most splendid fellow in the country — and to 
think of his cheating us in this way ! I call it 
immensely provoking !” 

And Miss Matilda, sitting with the rest of 
her party in the very front row of the reserved 
seats, adjusted the folds of her scarlet opera- 
cloak. Such a beautiful cloak, too, the very 
gem of Madame Parasuti’s collection. But 
Mrs. Ballinger was determined that her daugh- 
ter should be got up for this Festival regardless 
of expense. Indeed, she fondly hoped that 
the balls, dinners, and evening entertainments 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


C3 


to be given during its course at the new house 
on Portman Road would bring Mr. Armstrong 
to a decision, and be the means of enveloping 
Matilda in that halo of romance wherewith so- 
ciety surrounds the betrothed of a rich and pros- 
perous man. 

“ Never mind ; we won’t trouble ourselves 
about him,” said Mrs. Balmain, cheerfully. 
“ One voice more or less can’t make much dif- 
ference among so many. I should have been 
ten times more vexed if one of the ladies had 
failed us. I do so enjoy seeing their dresses ; 
and as they stay in their places all the time, 
you have such a capital prospect. What a pity 
Mrs. Ballinger is not here ! but of course she 
will come for the ‘ Messiah ’ to-morrow. She 
told me she had ordered a new bonnet from 
Madame Parasuti’s. Yours is delicious, my 
dear, perfectly delicious, and I can’t help telling 
you so.” 

Matilda inclined her head graciously. Such 
praise was the least that could be expected, un- 
der the circumstances. 

“Pa told me I was to spare no expense. 
You know I was at that horrid old school in 
London last Festival, and a great many things 
may happen before the next comes, so pa said 
I might as well enjoy it now.” 

Of course Mrs. Balmain knew what was im- 
plied by “a great many things,” and Matilda 
knew she knew. Indeed, Mr. Armstrong’s in- 
tentions were so very evident now that there 
was no need, especially with an intimate friend 
like Mts.-Balmain, for that reserve which is 
usually supposed to overshadow affairs of this 
kind, before they arrive at the definiteness of 
an actual engagement. Matilda, too, enjoyed 
her position the more because Edie Balmain, a 
pretty blonde of nineteen, was not quite insen- 
sible herself to Mr. Armstrong’s fascinations, 
and would very gladly, no doubt, have accepted 
the mistressship of that handsome new house 
at Wastewood. Ridiculous ! As if a man like 
Mr. Armstrong, who had traveled so much, and 
seen all sorts of society, would ever look at such 
an insipid little thing ! Mrs. Balmain knew 
that Matilda was jealous of Edie, not without 
cause, too ; and though she was very intimate 
with the Ballingers, and respected them, in the 
usual social way, very much, still few things 
would have afforded her greater satisfaction 
than to call on her dear friends on the Port- 
man Road, and inform them of her daughter’s 
engagement to old Hiram’s nephew. But these 
little roughnesses seldom showed themselves 
above the surface ; or, if they did, it was only 
as pretty moss-covered stones, upon which the 
waters of chitchat might break in playful spray. 
Nothing more than that. So she granted the 
position at once. 

“Exactly, my dear. I should say a great 
many things might happen before the next 
Festival. Indeed, I am rather surprised to 
find that you are not accompanied on the pres- 
ent occasion by some one I could name.” 

“I dare say, ’’said Matilda, with perfect self- 


possession. “Mr. Armstrong docs not care 
for music, you know, and as he takes me to- 
night, I told him I would dispense with his at- 
tendance for the morning performance. Poor 
fellow ! perhaps I was rather cruel, but really 
one might think ladies were scarce in Crux- 
borough rather than otherwise. He seems tp 
think it such a favor to be allowed to offer him- 
self as an escort.” 

“ That depends. Mr. Armstrong’s taste may 
be peculiar. I believe he is not very intimate 
anywhere but at your house and ours. He is 
excessively fond of my husband — enjoys noth- 
ing more than a chat with him when his rounds 
are over.” 

Mrs. Balmain said this with a meaning. Per- 
haps it was well for Miss Matilda to know that 
the wealthy colonist did occasionally allow the 
sunshine of his countenance to fall on other 
houses than that on the Portman Road. The 
information might serve to take her ladyship 
down a little. For it is all very well to look 
out of other people’s windows when they invite 
you to do so ; but, at the same time, it is pleas- 
ant to be able to say that your own happens to 
command a similar prospect ; especially pleas- 
ant w'hen the other people do not know that 
you have any windows at all in that direction. 
But Matilda graciously allowed the innuendo 
to pass. 

“ Yes ; I should think every body likes Mr. 
Balmain. I always say it is of very little con- 
sequence about the rest of a family when the 
head of it is able to make himself so popular. 
Now, you know, pa leaves every thing of that 
sort to us, so that really I am surprised Mr. 
Armstrong comes so frequently. He does not 
seem to mind it a bit. I tell him, sometimes, 
it is very good of him.” 

“Very, indeed,” said Mrs. Balmain, feeling 
rather snubbed, but returning to the attack 
with great adroitness in another direction. 
“How surprised I was to hear the other day 
that Mr. Ballinger had bought a commission 
for Reginald ! We all thought, you know, he 
was going to follow his father’s profession. He 
was educated for it, was he not ?” 

Naughty Mrs. Balmain ! For the fact was, 
Mr. Reginald had been plucked in all his ex- 
aminations, one after another, and time after 
time, until, a few months before, the army had 
been thought of as a last resource, and vigor- 
ous efforts made to bring him up to the requi- 
site degree of capability. Matilda beamed com- 
placently, however, upon the situation. 

“Oh, Reggy hates the law — always did. 
Don’t talk too loud — you see he is only a seat 
or two away from us. We could not all secure 
our places together, you know ; and so pa said 
he might as well have his own way. Of course 
it’s a very much better position. I think it is 
such a desirable thing for a man to be able to 
choose his own society.” 

“Exactly. I suppose a solicitor is not able 
to do that, or your papa would never have been 
so intimate with old Hiram Armstrong. They 


64 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


do say, my dear, he was a very disreputable 
man. And so Reginald likes it ?” 

“ Oh yes. He is very intimate with several 
of the officers. Captain Deveron is wonderful- 
ly kind to him. Indeed, I should not at all 
wonder if our families became connected before 
long. Of course you have heard that, though. 
Every one is talking about it.” 

No, Mrs. Balmain had not heard it. And, 
if she had spoken the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth, she might have add- 
ed that the information was by no means agree- 
able to her; for she had sometimes thought 
that Reginald would do very well for her own 
younger daughter, Gracie, and she had been 
paying a little more attention to the Ballingers 
of late on that account. Certainly, the young 
man was not brilliant ; but then there was plen- 
ty of money in the family, according to all ac- 
counts, and Gracie might go farther and fare 
worse. 

“You don’t say so! But I hear so little 
gossip. I should have set him down to Miss 
Nailby, if I had been asked to say what I 
thought. You know he danced with her three 
or four times at the subscription ball last week, 
and Mrs. Benfield — Major Benfield’s wife, you 
know — said to me she was sure there was some- 
thing in it. I was surprised, I must say, for 
the Nailbys are not generally thought much of. 

I did hear old Nailby kept a shop in Manches- 
ter.” 

“Nothing of the sort,” said Matilda, -with 
dignity. “At least, of course I know nothing 
of the shop ; but as regards my brother’s inti- 
macy with the family, there is certainly no 
foundation for the report. If a young man 
likes to dance once or twice with a pretty girl 
— and I believe the girl really is very nice-look- 
ing — I suppose he may be allowed to do it with- 
out meaning any thing serious. I shall tell 
Mrs. Benfield so the next time I see her. I 
expect to meet her at the Stewarts’ quadrille 
party next week.” 

And the tones of Matilda’s voice said as 
plainly as possible, 

“There, you see I know Mrs. Benfield as 
well as you do, and I know the Stewarts too, 
who are still more in society.” 

Mrs. Balmain held out a flag of truce, and 
then took up her position on the neutral ground 
of bonnets. 

“That tea-rose. suits your complexion admi- 
rably. It is a thousand pities you can not wear 
it to-night, only candle-light makes such a dif- 
ference. I must say I envy you being able to 
go to Madame Parasuti whenever you like. Do 
you know, I had no end of trouble to get a new 
bonnet out of Augustus? He let me have a 
perfect love of a terry velvet last winter, with 
the sweetest Honiton lace you ever saw, and 
he said I must make it do again this season. 
Just fancy!” 

“Really, the idea !” said Matilda. 

“Yes, that’s what I said too. But he gave 
in at last, because I sulked for a whole day 


about it ; I should have sulked until now, if he 
hadn’t come round. Nothing serious, you 
know, but just to let him see that I was not J 
pleased. Why, my ' dear, what is the use of a 
Festival if you can’t raise a few new things on 
the strength of it? And what do you think 
he said to me, as an excuse for not letting me 
go to the expense of a new bonnet?” 

“That he could not afford it? You know 
there are so many medical men in Crux- 
borough.” 

“ Nothing of the sort. Indeed, I think, the 
more there are, the more they find to do. No, 
he told me that the corporation are going to 
drain the city completely, on a new and im- 
proved system, and then the place will be so 
healthy that we shall never have fevers or epi- 
demics or any thing. The more reason, I said, j 
then, that I should have my bonnet before they 

set about it ; and of course he could not stand 

* 

against that, so here I am. But men are so 
foolish. You have not told me what you think 
about it.” 

“ It is very pretty,” said Matilda ; “ exceed- 
ingly neat. Just a trifle more lace would have 
improved it, and rather a handsomer feather ; I 
always say it is best to get a really good feather 
— they give such a style to a thing ; and perhaps , 
the strings a little broader. But still it is quite 
Jiice. Not like Madame Parasuti, of course : 
but then, you know, she is so enormously expen- 
sive. It really is quite ruinous. I expect pa 
will find fault with me when the bills come \vrf 
this Christmas, though he did tell- me I might 
do as I liked.” 

“And after dll, 1 ' said Mrs. Balmain, not ex- 
actly liking Matilda’s calm dismissal of her new 
bonnet, “ it is the face more than any thing 
you wear. Augustus always says so when I 
tell him he must let the girls have a little more 
mdney for their dress. My dear, he says, do 
you think Edie and Gracie w’ant tossing off 
with expensive millinery? why, they would 
be charming in gingham sun-bonnets ; just put 
them on something as simple as you can, and 
trust to their own beauty for the rest. Rather 
sensible, though, when you think about it. Mr. 
Armstrong was only saying the other night what 
a lovely complexion Edie has. He was quite 
struck with it. He was playing chess with 
her, you know. Ridiculous ! and she scarce- 
ly knew the moves, but they seemed to enjoy 
it immensely. Of course they never finish a 
game — they always end in chatting and flirt- 
ing, as I call it, only Edie is so perfectly sim- 
ple, you can hardly look at it in that light. 
Dear child ! Now Gracie, you know, has more 
style about her. The Benfields call Gracie the 
belle of Cruxborough. They say it is a shame 
for me to keep her shut up so, but I say there 
is time enough yet. I have no notion of push- 
ing my girls into society. They will get on 
well enough without that.” 

“No doubt,” said Matilda, hiding a yawn 
with her painted fan. “ The place is becom- 
ing very oppressive. I always think it is such 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


G5 


a tedious time before the music begins, espe- 
cially if you are near the front, where you can 
not see the people come in. It must be near- 
ly three, for the orchestra is beginning to fill al- 
ready. Those chorus girls do always come so 
early. A plain set, are they not — and so very 
dowdy ? I don’t see a single decent toilet 
among them yet.” 

“ Oh dear, no. But, then, those people never 
do know how to dress. I understand that some 
of them belong quite to the poorer classes. In- 
deed, I wouldn’t allow my girls to join on that 
account.” 

Mrs. Balmain said this because she knew that 
Miss Ballinger had been to some of the practi- 
cings ; but Matilda was too proof in her armor 
of conscious respectability even to perceive the 
arrow which glanced aside so harmlessly, and 
the other lady continued, 

“I told Mr. Grant I was surprised at his tak- 
ing such low people, and he said he looked out 
for fine voices, not fine clothes. Of course that 
is all very well, but he can not really expect 
the upper-class people to herd with an indis- 
criminate mob like that. I would rather have 
a few good voices, and keep up the respectabil- 
ity of the thing. But look, my dear. There 
is one pretty girl come in at last. Do you see 
her ? She has just taken her place on the fourth 
bench from this end. In that curious-looking 
foreign dress. I wonder who in the world she 
can be ?” 

Matilda looked in the given direction, and 
'then, in & ^eue of depreciatory indifference 
which most women i- 1 : when called upon to 
admire some one both younger and prettier 
than themselves, replied, 

“Never seen her before, that I remember. 
Ask Reginald ; I believe he knows all about 
that sort of people.” 

Mrs. Balmain applied to young Ballinger, 
who, attired in the most faultless of morning 
costumes, w r as lounging with his back to the 
orchestra, watching the thickening crowds of 
people in the nave. 

“Beg pardon,” he said, languidly, playing 
with the extreme ends of his long whiskers. 
“Is there any thing in the world I can do for 
you?” 

“Yes, there is; will you just turn round 
and tell me who that pretty girl is, among the 
sopranos ? I mean that one in the blue w'ool- 
en skirt and white bodice ; no, you are looking 
too high. A little lower, to the right ; there, 
you have your glass in the very place now', a 
white muslin bodice — ” 

“ Oh, confound the bodice, only look at her 
hair! Jove! what a splendid lot, to be sure, 
and such a complexion, too ! Never saw her 
before that I know of, and yet I seem to re- 
member the face, somehow. Queer, for I don’t 
fancy I’m the man to forget a girl like that. 
Not a Cruxborough belle, you may depend. 

I haven’t seen a girl that’s worth looking at j 
twice in this place since I came from Oriel. ! 
They’re an aw'fully plain set here.” j 


“Reginald !” said his sister, with dignity. 

“Present company always excepted, of 
course,” and Mr. Reginald boAved with that 
exquisite savoir faire which is to be acquired 
at schools “for the sons of gentlemen only.” 
“But I’ll maintain that I haven’t seen a pret- 
ty face in the place since I set foot in it until 
now.” 

And Reginald, leveling his opera-glass a sec- 
ond time in the direction of the fourth bench of 
sopranos, seemed disinclined to pursue the con- 
versation. 

Mrs. Balmain smiled. 

“ Men are so wild after a fair complexion. 
And if there happens to be golden hair along 
with it, why, they are done for completely. 
But it really is a pretty style of dress, isn’t it? 
So piquant and picturesque !”• 

“Tolerable,” said Matilda, patronizingly. 
“That petticoat in quilted blue satin, with a 
velvet kirtle and bodice of India muslin, would 
not be at all amiss. I shall perhaps speak to 
Madame Parasuti about it before the Christ- 
mas parties. I suppose one could have a train, 
to give dignity to the general effect, for even- 
ing wear ?” 

“Yes, perhaps. And,” added Mrs. Bal- 
main, with a slightly satirical glance at Ma- 
tilda’s piles of dead-brown natureless hair, 
“ that blue ribbon brings out the color of the 
golden curls so beautifully ; you must not for- 
.get the blue ribbon w r hen you go to Madame 
Parasuti. A fair w r oman should always say 
her prayers, and be thankful for being able to 
w ear blue, it is such .a fascinating color — at 
least, your brother seems to think so. I hope 
he doesn’t mean mischief. But look yonder. 
I declare young Monkeston has just taken his 
place among the tenors. What a handsome 
young fellow he grow's, to be sure ! And, do 
you know, my dear, they say Mr. Arncliffe sets 
no end of store by him — talks about taking him 
through every department of the concern up to 
the grinding of the glasses, and all that sort of 
thing, that people have to be immensely clever 
to do.” 

“Kindness, mere kindness,” said Matilda. 
“He knew poor Mrs. Monkeston could not 
afford a professional education for the young 
man.” 

“That may be ; but still it’s a very nice sort 
of kindness. You see, as Mr. Arncliffe is a bach- 
elor, there is no telling what may happen w'hen 
he takes a fancy to a young man. Augustus 
was telling me the other day that they have an 
order from the French court now at the Wools- 
thorpe works, the most splendid that has ever 
been done in England ; and Monkeston is to 
go through it from beginning to end — really a 
most w’onderful thing for a young man of his 
age. He will be a Member of the British As- 
sociation some day, most likely ; and I heard 
the other day of Dr. Boniface saying he should 
not be at all surprised if they made him presi- 
! dent before he is forty. I say that is nonsense, 
j though ; the Society w'ould never disgrace it- 


GG 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


self in that way. You know it is made up en- 
tirely of gentlemen and titled people, and dines 
with dukes and bishops and all that sort of 
thing, which w r ould be perfectly ridiculous for 
young Monkeston.” 

“Perfectly,” said Matilda. “People ought 
to keep in their places. And then that shop ! 
Just fancy a Member of the British Association 
having any thing to do with a ready-made linen 
shop ! Even if the young man did manage to 
raise himself a little, there would always be that 
to drag him down. And that poor girl, too. I 
am sure I am very sorry for her — it’s a dread- 
ful affliction ; and they do say she is very clev- 
er. Mamma has thought sometimes of having 
some of her carved work sent up for us to look 
at. You know it’s rather a nuisance going to 
the shop, on account of getting mixed up with 
them again ; and one would never think of 
such a thing as having her at one’s house.” 

“Oh dear, no — nothing of the sort. As I 
said to Mr. Balmain, when he was teasing me 
about calling to see them after he had attended 
young Monkeston through that long illness — 
fever, or something of the sort — years ago, 
* You must draw a line somewhere, and if you 
don’t draw it before you come to people who 
keep little shops, I don’t see that it’s any use 
drawing it at all. Mr. Reginald, do you see 
young Monkeston there among the tenors ?” 

“Beg pardon,” drawled the perfumed ex- 
quisite, lowering his opera -glass from that 
fourth bench, where it had remained fixed 
since, a quarter of an hour ago, Mrs. Balmain 
directed his attention to it. “Is there any 
thing in the world I can do for yon ?” 

“ Not this time, thank you. I only want 
you to look at young Monkeston there, among 
the tenors. Handsome, isn’t lie ?” 

“ Passable,” said Reginald, carelessly. He 
could be as spiteful about a good-looking man 
as his sister about a pretty girl. “ Plenty of 
him, but no sort of tone, you know.” 

“ Oh dear, no. Nobody expects tone from 
that sort of people. I don’t suppose he knows 
how to enter and leave a room correctly at 
present. Now, if I thought he did — ” 

“Possibly.” And Mr. Reginald’s opera- 
glass went back again to the fourth form and 
the bewitching golden hair. That was a much 
pleasanter prospect than the Saul-like stature 
and broad chest and brown, handsome face of 
the young mechanic. Besides, there was that 
disagreeable little affair about the fight and the 
bed of nettles, -which would still keep cropping 
up, though a whole university course lay now 
between him and it. And then, though he 
was scarcely in a condition at the time to re- 
member any thing very clearly, he always had 
a vague notion that it was young Monkeston, 
or some one very like him,’ who had put him 
into the mud one night, when, coming out of 
the billiard-rooms, he had happened to say 
something to a pretty girl who was passing. 
Mrs. Balmain, however, seemed determined to 
keep him to the subject. 


“They do say,” she persisted, “that he is 
immensely clever — quite likely to rise to the 
first ranks of his profession.” 

“I have no doubt,” replied Reginald, with a 
bow. “His hands and finger-nails bear wit- 
ness to his proficiency at greasing engines. I 
should say that in that line he is unapproach- 
able.” 

“Now you are spiteful. You know he is 
going through the practical part at present, my 
husband says. It will be quite different when 
he comes to the mathematical rooms.” 

“For the sake of civilization I should hope 
so,” said Mr. Reginald, caressing the dainty 
tips of his lavender kids. 

“ But Mr. Arncliffe says — ” 

“ Mr. Arncliffe is an old muff. Excuse me, 
but I fancy I recognize a face yonder.” 

And up went the opera -glass again, not 
“yonder,” but to the fourth bench of sopranos. 

Mrs. Balmain smiled as she. turned again to 
Matilda. 

“A case, my dear. A very decided case, 
only I hope he won’t carry it too far. That 
sort of thing doesn’t do to be carried too far. 
An exceedingly pretty face. It is easy to see, 
too, that the poor child is quite new to any 
thing of this sort, she looks so restless and fid- 
gety. She has been staring down at that door, 
where the solo singers enter, for this quarter 
of an hour ; and whenever it opens I can see 
her change color ; and how she twitches at her 
music ! No repose in her manner -all.: never 
is with that sort of people. B«. 'as I was say- 
ing about young Mr.ilccston. If Mr. Arncliffe 
really takes to him, and has him up in town 
with him among those scientific people, and 
he should get a little insight into society, per- 
haps — ” 

“ Yes, I quite understand,” said Matilda, 
sweeping at a glance the -whole field of possi- 
bilities and probabilities which could be com- 
manded through the eye-piece of that one lit- 
tle word “ perhaps.” “ I have spoken to 
mamma about it, myself. I told her, if he did 
begin to take on a little polish, and bring his 
wristbands properly down, I should not at all 
object to his being invited occasionally, when 
we w'ere quite alone. Of course I Avouldntt 
for the world have him come when there was 
companjq on account of that horrid shop, which 
w’ould be sure to be mentioned. I should be 
ready to sink into the earth with vexation if he 
brought it up before Mr. Armstrong, or any of 
our own set ; but just now and then ; and to 
let him understand that it is out of kindness, 
mere kindness, and not to involve us with the 
women of the family.” 

“Just so. 1 always set my face against 
having my house choked up with women. But 
look, there are the singers coming in. I had 
no idea it -was so late. I am sorry not to see 
this wonderful Notturino. They say he’s sure 
to come to-morrow, but Mr. Balmain is so 
stupid he won’t let me have a ticket for more 
than one morning performance. Shabby, isn’t 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


it ? And I tell him it will be three years, at 
the very least, before that draining business be- 
gins to affect the health of the town.” 

“My papa wishes me to come to all the 
performances,” said Matilda, drawing herself up 
with a due sense of the social status involved 
in such liberality, “and Reginald enjoys it im- 
mensely. You see, he has never taken his 
opera-glass off that bench. I wonder what he 
sees in the girl. I admire expression so much 
more than mere color. What a lovely pea- 
green satin that is next the contralto, trimmed 
with Iloniton lace ! I must tell Madame Par- 
asuti. Those singers always do seem to under- 
stand dress so perfectly, and the rose-colored 
silk of the soprano on the other side relieves it 
beautifully. A shade too pale, though, for this 
time of the year.” 

“Would you be so very kind,” said a clear, 
ringing voice, immediately behind them — no 
less a voice, indeed, than that of the Countess 
Dowager of Cruxborough — “ w'ould you be so 
very kind as to remain silent during the per- 
formance ?” 

And the representatives of fashionable soci- 
ety did remain silent accordingly. 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

The oratorio was over. Many-colored 
tream 0 poured out from the various door- ways 
of the grand old Minster. The bells were ring- 
ing merrily again; again carriages were ca- 
reering to and fro along the Close, depositing 
their splendidly-dressed occupants at the Bish- 
op’s Palace, Deanery, and other ecclesiastical 
residences. Clusters of girls, with rolls of 
music, were chatting at the little east door, con- 
gratulating each other upon having passed safe- 
ly through this first part of their labor. For- 
eign-looking men, belonging to the band, car- 
rying coffin-like wooden cases under their arms, 
gesticulated vigorously, and hummed phrases 
of the oratorio, as they hurried to their hotels 
to dine, and smoke, and rest, before the miscel- 
laneous evening concert recalled them to their 
labors. The leading artists and solo singers, 
with the conductor, and Mr. Grant, had betaken 
themselves to the musty old Canons’ vestry, 
now converted into a temporary waiting-room, 
whose quaint bosses and mediaeval oak carv- 
ings contrasted oddly enough with the modern 
magnificence of the people who were throng- 
ing into it. 

“And who was the little German maiden 
who sang so bravely in the chorus?” asked the 
prima donna , Madame Fortebracchio, an im- 
perial Italian woman, in rose-colored silk, who, 
leaning against an oak alms-chest of the four- 
teenth century, was criticising, with Mr. Grant, 
the various points of the performance. “I 
could hear her voice through all the rest, yet 
so soft and clear.” 

“Well, just now she is employed in the lac- 


07 

quering-room of the Woolsthorpe works here,” 
said Mr. Grant, proud of the notice awarded to 
his industrious little pupil. “ She works hard 
all day for ten shillings a week,. and then comes 
to my class and sings like a nightingale. She 
is a treasure to me, for we do not find many 
such voices in England.” 

“I should think not, indeed, or England 
would be a fortunate county. She is a little 
jewel ! We ought to make a great singer of 
her.” 

“So I think. And we have been making 
arrangements for her to leave her lacquering 
work, and give all her time to music. I shall 
gladly teach her, and some kind friends will 
make her a home. She has no people of her 
own in England. She comes from Stuttgart.” 

“Ah, then most likely she would be taught 
in the Conservatoire. She sings as if she knew 
her art. Can you bring her to me to-night 
before the concert? I would speak with her.” 

“ Oh, I dare say you can see her now, if you 
like. She will be with the other girls in the 
chorus room. If you will wait one moment, I 
will bring her to you.” 

Mr. Grant hurried away to the Convocation 
room — a queer, rambling old building, which 
grew like a wen out of the south side of the 
Minster. Here, among a crowd of altos and 
sopranos busily searching for their respective 
wraps, he soon descried the golden curls and 
rosy face of Gretchen, who was putting on her 
woolen cloak — putting it on very carefully, too, 
so as not to crumple the clear muslin bodice, 
which must do duty twice more, at any rate. 

“Now, Friiulein, where are you?” said the 
happy little man, bustling away with a word of 
commendation or otherwise, as it was needed 
for different members of his choir, to Gret- 
chen’s corner. “You have sung very ■well — very 
well, indeed, and I am come now to take you 
to Madame Fortebracchio, who has asked for 
you. Come along, quick, my child, for ma- 
dame is not accustomed to be kept waiting.” 

“ What is it, then, that the Herr Kapellmeis- 
ter wishes of me?” asked Gretchen, looking 
wonderingly into his face as she tied the strings 
of her hood. “I go to whom?” 

“ To Madame Fortebracchio, who has heard 
your voice and wishes to speak to you. Quick, 
quick! for madame’s carriage waits.” 

And taking Gretchen by the hand, he led 
her away through files of girls who, once de- 
spising the simple village maiden, looked envi- 
ously enough upon her now, to the presence of 
the magnificent prima donna. 

“ Here, madame ; this is our little singing- 
bird. I was just in time to catch her before she 
took flight to her nest in the old college yard.” 

“You have done bravely, my child,” said 
Madame Fortebracchio, taking Gretchen’s large 
hand into her own, so delicately gloved. “ I 
heard your voice this morning, and you sang 
with your whole soul. What is your name ?” 

“ Gretchen Muller, madame,” said the girl, 
blushing and courtesy ing lowly. 


G8 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


“And your father and mother, child '?” 

“My father lives no longer, and my mother 
is a peasant woman, and our home is in Stutt- 
gart.” 

“And have you any brothers and sisters?” 

“No, madame. I was to my mother all she 
had.” 

“Yet you left her to come here, and now 
she is quite alone.” 

“No, madame,” said Gretchen, now for the 
first time venturing to lift her blue eyes to the 
grand lady’s face. “It was her will for me 
that I should come. I did but obey.” 

“Ah! that makes all the difference. And 
you love music, my child ?” 

u Ja wold. Ask me is there any thing else 
I do love so well. It is to me here my home, 
and my friends, and my country!” 

“That is as it should be,” said madame, 
smiling down from her rosy splendor upon the 
peasant girl. “Now you shall come to me to- 
night, an hour before the concert, and I will 
hear you sing, and we shall see what can be 
done.” 

“Madame,” said Gretchen, “how you are 
good to me ! But my courage will not let me 
that I do sing to you ; I shall tremble, and you 
will say that I have no Geist 

“Never mind, little one, we will make that 
all right ; and now go away, for I do not want 
to keep you any longer. Do not be late to- 
night. Come to me an hour before the concert. 
Addio. You may go.” 

And with a smile and graceful gesture of 
farewell, she dismissed the girl. 

“We must have her taught,” she said, turn- 
ing to Mr. Grant, when Gretchen, blushing and 
trembling, had pushed her way through the gay 
ladies in the Canons’ vestry. “Such a voice 
must not be wasted. Ah ! but what a thou- 
sand pities that the Signor Notturino is not 
here to-day! He does so love a beautiful 
voice; and more still,” madame continued, 
with a smile, “ when the singer’s face is so fair. 
He would never rest until he had taken her to 
the Conservatoire at Naples.” 

“I am not quite sure,” said the organist, 
doubtfully, for lie had more than once seen 
Roger Monkeston’s tender glance rest upon 
little Gretchen, and he knew the young man 
would be faithful and true ; “ I am not quite 
sure that she would like to go so far away. 
She is at home here now, and she has friends, 
and she is happy.” 

“That may be, Signor Grant; but our art 
must not be robbed of her, and she can be 
happy elsewhere, even as here. If song is to 
her as her native land, she is everywhere at 
home. And, besides, if Notturino wills it, it 
must be so ; for when he once sees her, he will 
never rest until every thing is as he wishes it. 
So fair, too, and so simple, and with so sweet 
a presence — there is nothing which she may not 
do. It is not right that you keep her here al- 
ways with her eyes shut.” 

Madame would have said more, but just then 


the Countess of Cruxborough came up to shake 
hands with the prima donna and my Lord 
Gravenorth; and there was a great blaze of 
compliments and congratulations, and the priino 
tenore , a burly, good-natured man, seized upon 
Mr. Grant and carried him off to explain an in- 
scription upon one of the oak chests ; and after 
that the stewards had their arrangements to 
talk over for the evening concert, and no more 
was said for the present about little Gretchen, 
whose future had been, without care or trouble 
or consent of hers, thus kindly settled for her. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

She had wrapped herself up for the second 
time, and was hurrying across the north tran- 
sept to the little east door. Roger met her 
there ; he had been waiting for her long — ever 
since the oratorio was finished — for he knew 
she must pass that way. She did not try to 
avoid him now, and there was no under-tone of 
sadness in her voice as she ran jo fully up to 
him and held out her hand. 

“I am all over glad,” she said, 7 out 

upon him once more the sunshine of nilo 
which had first won his heart, three m 
ago, in the corridor of the Woolst : y - ’k 
“It is to me a Festival to-day. A Y c i i tell 
how much?” 

“ I know it is, Gretchen ; I knev : 
first note you sang. And now you are' pro 
too, for Madame Eortebracchio foi 

you to sing to her, and she has be< buying no 
end of pretty things to you, has she not ? 

Gretchen shook her head. 

“ It is not the pretty things which hs e ma 
me happy. You do know me t i 1 at 

you should say that of me. But something 
that brought me sad has gone away, and I no 
longer remember, and I no longer fear. Ah ! 
but I have had so much fear until that this day 
has come, you do not know.” 

And Gretchen shuddered and drew a little 
closer to Roger as they stood, they two alone, 
in the shadow of the east door-way. She was 
already beginning to feel safe by Roger’s side ; 
some day she might feel happy there, too. 

“ Yes, I do know something, Gretchen,” he 
said, taking her hand and keeping it fast in his ; 
for that she had come even a little nearer to him 
in the gloom seemed to give him courage to 
say what was stirring within him. “I know 
a cloud has gone away. I wonder what it was ? 
Will you tell me ?” 

Gretchen looked keenly up into his face, more 
keenly than was her wont. 

“ You are good. I think I will tell you. It 
was only a name that did make me fear, for I 
had known it long ago. Ah,” and Gretchen put 
forth her hand, as if to bid away something, 
“why do I then remember? It was at Stutt- 
gart, when I did sing in the Conservatoire, and 
he wished that I should go with him and learn 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


09 


to be a great artist ; and he told me often that 
I was ein schones Madchen , which pleased not 
my mother that she heard it, and so she made 
it that I came away ; for I was but a peasant 
girl, and he was of the great people. But ach ! 
until I did come, he followed me always with 
his eyes, and took away my will, and it seemed 
to me that ever he drew away my life because 
that I might not go to him, and I had no rest.” 

“ Your mother was a wise woman, Gretchen. 
Is it not better that you are here ?” 

“ I can not tell. It was to me my own place 
that he would have given me, for it belongs to 
me that I should be with those to whom music 
is the life. Ah ! if I do not sing, I have no 
home. But it must not be, and I came here, 
and I tried to forget ; and you were good to 
me, and the Fiaulein Jean took me into her 
love, and it was no longer that I must work, 
only work ; so I began to be at peace.” 

“You little Gretchen,” said Roger, folding 
still closer the hand that lay in his, why should 
it not always be so ?” 

“ I know not, I know not any thing. But 
the days began to smile to me again, and I was 
happy, and I forgot, until it came to me that 
perhaps he might seek me here. And all sud- 
denly it was that his eyes did look into me 
again and drew from me my will, and, alas! 

e no mother to say to me, ‘Gret- 
art a foolish child ; it shall not be 
a; t was for me like a thick cloud ; but 
•ee again. I do belong to myself.” 
uld only guess dimly at the mean- 
: is. It was to him just a strange 
had taken possession of Gretchen’s 
,.i his own strong, practical, self-reliant 
.e knew nothing of that power which can 
sometimes almost paralyze a softer, more pliant 
nature. The child had been left too much to 
herself; she had become morbid and frighten- 
ed. She just wanted a little healthy stimulus 
to clear away these mists and cobwebs from her 
brain. The oratorio music had done it. She 
was herself again now — bright, free, uncon- 
scious. 

“ You have been thinking and dreaming too 
much, little one. Jean must have you away 
from the good Frau Bratchet, who never says 
any thing to you that you can understand. 
When you have those around you a little more 
like yourself, you will be always happy again. 
But tell me more about this Madame Forte- 
bracchio, who has been so good to you.” 

“Ah!” said Gretchen, brightening up, “she 
has opened for me the door again to my life. 
She says I am to go to her to-night, before the 
concert, and she will speak of me to her friends, 
and she will do for me what she can ; and per- 
haps it will be that I go far away to learn my 
art, and then one day I, too, will be of the great 
peoples.” 

Roger felt a sudden darkness wrap round 
him. Was this, then, how it was going to be ? 
His love had not yet reached that height of 
nobleness which can give up all for the beloved 


one. To keep his Gretchen by him, lowly, un- 
known, uncarcd for, save by himself, was bet- 
ter than to let her go forth into the great wide 
world, there to win for herself perhaps a lofty 
name, but to forget in the winning of it those 
who once were dear. 

For a while there was a great storm within 
him. Then came a still small voice. Gret- 
chen was but doing what he himself had done. 
To her, even as to him, a voice had called, 
bidding her away from the low level of content 
to a life wherein all that she possessed might 
find room to grow. Should he, then, try to 
keep her back from it? Should he beseech 
her, as he had once besought himself, to stay 
in the quiet valley, when so much lay beyond 
it, so fair an outlook to be won, so pure an air 
to be breathed on those distant hill-tops ? 

Roger listened to the still small voice, but 
he could not bring himself to obey it. It 
seemed so much safer to keep Gretchen there 
in the valley, than to let her go to possible suc- 
cess and possible forgetfulness away out of 
his reach. Self conquered. 

“Madame, then, says she will' do for you 
what she can. That means she will take you 
away from here, where you are happy and at 
rest, and make of you a great singer.” 

“And why should she not?” said Gretchen, 
‘with a flash of enthusiasm. “It has been in 
my heart always. I can speak myself with no 
other language.. Will you, then, that I be al- 
ways silent ? You think I am happy, because 
madame has said to me a few compliments ; 
it is not that. It is that she has showed me 
the sunlight for which I so long wait. Ah ! 
why is it that you will not understand ?” 

It gave Roger a pang that Gretchen should 
care for any future whose brightness was not 
made by himself. 

“I can understand,” he said; “I know it 
all. But why need you go away from us to 
learn that language ? Does not Mr. Grant say 
that he will teach you, and you shall be at 
home with my mother, and Jean will be so 
good to you ? Oh, why did madame ever hear 
you? Why could she not let you alone, and 
then we should have been so happy together ? 
Stay, Gretchen — stay!” 

“Is it then every thing,” Gretchen said, her 
eyes sparkling — “ every thing that we should 
be happy ? When our voices call to us must we 
not follow ? A voice says to you, work there 
among your engines and your machinery, and 
your strange, beautiful things that I do not 
even know of their meaning, and you do follow 
it, and you will one day be great, ein Edehnann. 
And my voice says to me from far off, come; 
and yet you do bid me that I stay here. I do 
love much your sister, and the grave, good face 
of madame is for me better than a long prayer 
of the Frau Bratchet ; but it is not now all to 
me that I must be comfortable.” 

“ Gretchen — ” they were standing outside in 
the twilight of that late October afternoon, all 
around them the sweet clangor of the bells 


70 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


stirring the air into music as it rose and fell 
with every breath of the west wind — “ Gret- 
chen, if I said to you stay — stay with me, and 
be my own out of all the world, should you 
listen to that voice ?” 

Gretchen did not stir the hand that lay in 
his. She did not move away from his side. 
Yet something kept them apart. A grim old 
gurgoyle, with a stony sneer forever graven on 
its face, leered down upon them from over the 
door-way. A bat swooped across from be- 
hind the mouldering buttresses of the Chapter 
House ; and still the bells kept rising and fall- 
ing, rising and falling. 

“I am tired,” said Gretchen. “I would 
rest and speak to myself. You are good. I 
place you always in my thoughts. See, it is 
already dark, and so much waits for me to- 
night.” 

Roger drew her a little nearer to him. 
Gravely, reverently, almost as one touches the 
face of the dead, he kissed the white forehead 
that gleamed underneath the woolen hood. 
Gretchen did not blush, she did not tremble. 
Simply she took his hand and laid her cheek 
upon it. And with that mute caress she glided 
away from him into the gloom. 

Roger staid there watching her while he 
could, the sweet bells of hope, the black wings 
of fear, smiting together upon the twilight of 
his heart. And all his love seemed to go forth 
after her in the one word which she could no 
longer hear, 

“Stay, Gretchen — stay.” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

So the little German peasant maid went to 
the “Cruxborough Arms,” that very* fashion- 
able hotel, where all the great singers and most 
of the aristocratic county people were staying ; 
went alone, in her blue petticoat and muslin 
bodice* which the Frau Bratchet had newly 
ironed for her, and embroidered kirtle, and the 
Kimmelblau ribbon in her hair ; and that won- 
dering smile upon her face, for she had never 
been in such a grand house before, all by her- 
self, too ; and her heart beat loud and fast as a 
liveried footman, about twice as big as herself, 
led her up a great staircase and along a gal- 
lery thronged with ladies and gentlemen who 
were turning out in evening-dress for the con- 
cert. The gentlemen, some of them, looked 
boldly into her face, for was she not a simple 
peasant girl, sent on a message, most likely, to 
some of the great singers. And the ladies 
looked at her and whispered, and a waiter or 
two, rushing along with remains of dinner, near- 
ly stumbled over her, and scolded her for not 
getting out of the way ; and it was an immense 
relief when at last the footman* threw open the 
door of a great room at the end of the long- 
gallery, and cried out, as if, Gretchen thought, 
all the house must needs hear him, 






“•Madame, a young person asks for you.” 

The room was full of gilding and mirrors 
and flowers. Everywhere another Gretchen 
seemed coming to meet her, and lights were 
burning, and perfumes distilled from the silken 
hangings ; and madame, in a glory of white 
satin and jewels, moved slowly forward to meet 
her. How different all this from the Frau 
Bratchet’s little drab -washed room, with its 
checked hangings and hard w’ooden sofa, and 
furniture of wash-tubs and starcli-bowls ; and 
the Frau Bratchet herself, in that everlasting 
lilac-print gown and frilled cap and perfume 
of soap-suds and soiled linen. Ah ! these great 
peoples and these little peoples — why should 
there be such a difference ? And how good 
it must be never to have to work at all, but 
only dress beautifully and sing. 

“And so you have come, la mia bella ?” said 
the white-satin lady, with a sweet laugh, as she 
looked into the girl’s wide-open eyes of wonder 
and delight. “And you look so pretty in your 
festa dress. Ah ! but if we could only keep our 
youth and beauty what might we not do ? And 
now sing to me, for we have but an hour before 
my carriage comes, and you shall ride with me 
to the concert. You sing in the chorus of the 
cantata to-night, do you not ?” 

“Yes, madame,” said Gretchen, with a low 
courtesy, as the sheen of the white satin dress 
flashed up into her face and made the blue 
woolen petticoat seem so coarse. And at ev- 
ery movement of that queenly head there was 
a sparkle of light, as diamond after diameaqd 
glistened in the dark hair. 

“Come, then, my child;” and madame moved 
to the piano. “ Now, do not fear,” she contin- 
ued, as Gretchen’s lip began to tremble and her 
hands clasped each other more tightly over the 
black kirtle. “Think that you are in the old 
cathedral again, and that the good gray-headed 
Kapellmeister is beating the time for you ; and 
remember nothing save that you are at home 
in your own land of music. What will you 
sing?” 

“Shall it be one of the songs I knew in 
Stuttgart, madame ? ‘ Kennst du das Land ?’ ” 

“Yes, truly. Begin, then.” 

And madame played a few chords, and then 
Gretchen, trembling like a reed, tried Mignon’s 
song. How like it seemed to her own heart’s 
thought, that far-off look to a brighter, warm- 
er, rosier land, a land where beauty and music 
should close her round, and where all this weary 
working and restlessness should be done with ! 
Ah ! why could she not have gone, long ago, 
when the dark-faced signor bade her away to 
that myrtle and citron land? Why must she 
stay here, under these cloudy skies, when the 
life that belonged to her, that was her own, 
called so sweetly to her ? All the vague, half- 
unshapen longing in Gretchen’s soul sang itself 
out in Beethoven’s subtle melody. It was as 
if her very spirit found a voice, and asked for 
freedom. 

“Santa Maria, how the child moves me!” 


71 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


said madame, as a tear fell upon her bouquet ; 
and looking into the great mirror opposite, she 
; saw Gretchen’s face, as if transfigured into far 
i more than its siipplc peasant beauty. But the 
: girl did not tremble now — she had forgotten 
all about that.' 

When she had finished, madame turned 
round and kissed her on the forehead. 

“My child, you must be one of us. Your 
voice is for all the world to hear. Would yon 
not like to be a singer?” 

“Ah, madame!” and Gretchcn, courtesying 
| low, seemed to bring herself as from a great 
} way off, “ it is what all my life I have longed 
| for ; only — ” 

“Never mind the only. The voice calls, 
and you must go. And your people — what 
are they ? where do you live ?” 

“I have no people, madame, here. I do 
come to work for my bread, and I live now 
with the Frau Bratcliet who takes care of me ; 
[ and all the time, when she is not washing, she 
i sings and prays.” 

“The good soul!” said madame. “And 
where lives this Frau Bratchet?” 

“In the old college yard, madame, close to 
the market-place. But it is not long that she 
! will now take cate of me, for Madame Monk- 
; eston says that she will make for me my home, 
j and the good Kapellmeister will teach me mu- 
I sic, and I shall no more need to work at the 
| Herr Arncliffe’s. I have three days a holiday 

1 now to sing at the Festival. Is it not good for 
! 'hat the Herr has given me three days a 

. holiday ?” 

. Madame smiled. IIow quaint and pretty 

2 she was, this little German wild-flower ! 

“ That maybe. Perhaps, by-and-by, we shall 
make for you all the days a holiday. But I 
know that old college yard ; the countess has 
j spoken to me of it. She says I must, before I 
i leave, see it, for it is very curious ; and then 

! perhaps I shall see the Frau Bratchet, who 
prays and washes. Would you not like, la 
bella mia , that I should speak for you, and that 
you should go to Italy — to the Citronen-land, 
you know — and leiarn to be a great singer ? Go, 
now ; leave this cold, dreary place, where you 
are not happy.” 

Gretchen’s hands dropped heavily by her 
side. The bright spirit seemed slowly to die 
out from her face. Her wistful blue eyes, so 
j frank in their innocence, looked away beyond 
} the perfumed hangings and gilded mirrors of 
the great drawing-room, beyond the sheen of 
madame’s white satin robes and the flash of 
her diamonds, away to the little east door of the 
Minster, and the gray October twilight; and 
she felt Roger’s kiss upon her forehead — felt it 
throbbing there still, even under the touch of 
madame’s rosy lips ; and she heard, his voice 
wandering after her in the gloom, with its low, 
sad call, 

“ Stay, Grctchen — stay !.” 

And farther away she looked to the little 
room in the old gabled house, where only that 


morning — but it seemed so long ago, so long, 
long ago— she had sat by the Fraulein Monk- 
eston’s side, and thought, with such quick, 
springing delight, how good it would be to find 
herself always at home there, caressed, taken 
care of, with no weary coming and going any 
more, but only quietness. And away, farther 
off still, to the sunny southern land which ma- 
dame told her of, which in her song and her 
music she had dreamed of ; and was not that 
her home, too ? and did not the voice call 
there ? and must she not listen and follow ? 
Ah ! but could she follow and forget ? Why 
was life, then, so wonderful and so strange ? 

“ Child, you are dreaming,” said madame, 
lightly touching her soft cheek. “ Bring those 
wandering blue eyes home again, and tell me, 
will you not lovl to be one of us ?” 

Gretchen gave a great start. Once more she 
was conscious of the gilded mirrors, and the 
light, and the perfume, and the splendor. 

“I have friends, madame. And — and I 
think they love me.” 

A look of impatience flitted over madame’s 
face. 

“Ah, these friends and this love!” she said 
to herself, in Italian. “ It is always so. But 
when the signor comes he will make it right. 
He can turn things as he will. She can no 
longer even think when he thinks for her.” 

Then she went to a side-table, poured out a 
glass of wine, and brought it to Gretchen. 

“Well, well, my child; we must wait and 
see. Drink this, for you look tired, and you 
have still to sing in the cantata, and then sit 
down till I have written a little note for the 
signor. It may be that he comes before I re- 
turn. And take this, too, pretty one,” she add- 
ed, slipping something into the sachel which 
hung by Gretchen’s kirtle. “You can look at 
it when you are safe home again. But come 
to me in the artists’ room after the concert this 
evening. Some of my friends will speak to 
you there. I will tell them of you, and we 
shall see what can be done for yon.” 

When madame had finished the note, she 
gathered up her fan and her bouquet and her 
music, and a servant came with an Indian 
shawl; and a perfumed, satin-lined hood, so 
different to Gretchen’s coarse woolen one, was 
put over the diamond- studded hair, and the 
privm donna swept magnificently down the 
broad staircase, with the little German girl in 
blue petticoat apd buckled shoes by her side ; 
down, supremely unconscious of the curious 
faces that peered through half-open doors and 
side entries to catch a glimpse of her beauty, 
to the carriage which was waiting at the hotel 
door. And Gretchen must ride, too — no trip- 
ping with Roger across the Cathedral Close any 
more for her now ; so they were both driven in 
state to the assembly-rooms, where the artists 
were waiting to flutter round madame and sun 
themselves in her smiles ; while the peasant 
maid, who did not belong to them yet* and 
could onlv go in among them yet by grace and. 


72 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


favor, slipped quietly away up a dark stair to 
her place among the sopranos in the chorus. 

Roger was not there. Mr. Arncliffe was 
busy preparing a paper which he had to read 
before the Royal Society at the end of the 
week ; and so, instead of singing in the can- 
tata, his young pupil was closeted in the inner 
office of the Woolsthorpe works, plodding his 
way, with such clearness as he could, through 
a long table of calculations which must be 
brought out correctly before the paper could 
be finished. Gretchen was half-glad, half-sor- 
ry to miss him from his place. Every touch 
of memory was bitter-sweet to her now. Ev- 
ery remembered word, every once pleasant hope 
belonging to her actual daily life, was as a cloud 
passing over the mirror in which she tried to 
see for herself a new future. *She wanted to 
forget, and yet she would not be unfaithful. 
Which way she turned voices called upon her. 
There was no rest, no certainty. Her thoughts 
were like a dissolving view in which a once fa- 
miliar picture is slowly trembling away, while 
of the one that is to come nothing yet appears 
but a confused mass of new light and shade. 

Only one thing was plain. She was to go 
to madame when the cantata was over. And 
madame would smile upon her again, speak of 
her to the great people, perhaps make some ar- 
rangement for her to go quite away to one of 
the famous Italian schools. She would go if 
madame bade her. It must be all right, then. 
It was this wondering and waiting, this hoping 
and fearing and remembering, which made her 
feel as if there were no rest for her in all the 
world. 

But she sang bravely through her part, and 
then went down the little narrow stairs again 
to the door of the room where madame was to 
see her. A few of the solo singers were there, 
chatting and laughing merrily enough : but 
Gretchen, peering in, could see no sheen of 
white satin, and no dark queenly head with 
diamond light flashing around it. Still she wait- 
ed, standing meekly there, with her woolen 
cloak wrapped round her, her roll of music in 
her hand, until the music ceased and the peo- 
ple came pouring out, and she was jostled and 
pushed and stared at. Who should she be, 
standing there in her peasant dress, where only 
the great ones had a right to come ? 

While she waited Patch came up. Amidst 
the throngs of people it was easy for her to 
make her way to the girl’s side. 

“You here, Gretchen?” she said, laying her 
hand on the girl’s arm. 

“Yes,” said Gretchen, very simply, for she 
did not realize that there was any thing un- 
becoming in being seen at the door of the art- 
ists’ room talking to a woman of Patch’s dis- 
reputable exterior. “Ah, but I have so much 
to tell you ! The madame has been so good ! 
She did send for me that I should sing to her, 
and she has promised that she will name me 
to her friends, who will help me that I become 
one of them. I am now to wait for her here.” 


“ So, so ! And did she say to whom she 
would name you, then ?” 

“ No, only that she would do for me what- 
ever she could.” 

“Have a care, child!” said Patch; and 
then, suddenly as she had come, she disap- 
peared. 

“ Why do you wait here ?” said one of the 
stewards, rather harshly to Gretchen. He had 
been watching her for some time, and seeing 
her talking with an ill-clad, ungainly-looking 
woman, thought she had better be questioned. 
“Have you any business here? If not, you 
must go. You block up the way.” 

Gretchen glanced timidly at the blue rosette 
in the steward’s button-hole. It seemed to give 
the wearer an almost awful importance. 

“I do w r ait until 'madame asks for me.” 

“And what madame is likely to ask for you, 
pray ?” 

“The grand madame, sir. She did send for 
me to her hotel to-night that she should hear 
me sing, and she did say I should come to her 
in this room. I was to wait.” 

The steward looked incredulously at her. 

An unlikely story. But these great singers al- 
ways had such a following of people wanting 
help, foreigners in distress, girls with made-up 
tales about mothers and sisters dependent upon 
them, or begging to be allowed to try their 
voices, in the hope of winning a shilling or two 
for charity. This roll of music, too, w r as evi- I 
dently a trick, for she could not belong to the 
chorus, her appearance was so entirely foroi^. ... j 
Still, if there was any truth in her story — 

The steward flung wide open the door of the 
artists’ room. 

“Did Madame Fortebracchio leave any 
message about a girl who was to ask for her?* 
Some one here says she has orders to wait.” 

The primo basso , a jolly, good-natured man, 
with any quantity of white waistcoat about him, 
came out of a corner where he had been crack- 
ing jokes with one of the other stewards, and 
said, 

“Madame Fortebracchio went away a quar- 
ter of an hour ago, as soon as her last song was 
over. She left no message. I never heard of 
any one who was to come and see her.” 

Poor Gretchen heard, for the voice was loud 
enough. 

“ You had better go home,” said the stew- 
ard, convinced now that she was some begging 
foreigner. “You have no business to come 
here, blocking up the way. You are too young 
and too strong to stand asking for charity in 
this way. Off, directly !” 

Gretchen did not flash up into pride or pas- 
sion. Instead, she looked wonderingly into 
the gentleman’s face. What, then, did it all 
mean ? And was it only a dream that she had 
sung, and been smiled upon and kissed and ca- 
ressed, and that she had come in the carriage 
with madame, and been bidden to wait for her 
there, that something might perhaps be really 
arranged for her? But the steward was point- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


73 


ing to the door, and the policeman had already 
come to see what was the matter, and the peo- 
ple from the dress seats — a mingled mass of 
flowers and feathers and spangles and stream- 
ers— were crowding out ; and, with a strange, 
sad, homeless feeling at her heart, the girl slip- 
ped quietly away into the dark streets, away to 
the Frau Bratchet’s one little room, which was 
all the home she had. No Roger either now to 
I wait for her, to take her hand in his and lead 
her safely along, to speak kindly to her, or tell 
her that he placed her always in his thoughts. 
All ! if he would have come now, how gladly 
she would have nestled up to him, and told 
• him every thing, and, as it were, come home 
to him to be at peace. For all was so strange 
and so comfortless. She knew not any thing. 
She dared not go hack to the hotel and ask for I 
, madame — that would seem too bold. Besides, | 
all the other singers would be there, and how 
could she face them? And something within 
{ her kept her from going to the only other place 
where she could have found any sort of help 
< and sympathy — Jean Monkeston’s little room. 
The life which madame’s promise had held be- 
fore her, a little while ago, seemed so different 
from that life. She could no longer rest upon 
, it as she had once done ; she could no longer 
find in it what she needed. The gold and the 
! satin and the splendor were dazzling her still ; 

the neglect and slight and disappointment were 
J chilling her. She wanted something to be sure 
; of, something to rest upon. She wanted a hand 
h to take hers now tenderly, and a loving voice to 
1 say, 

“ Stay, Gretchen — stay.” 

Then she might have listened — followed. 

I But neither hand nor voice was there any 
J more. 

She hurried away, frightened, excited — for 
| the streets were thronged with carriages jos- 
tling against each other in the gloom — to the 
! college yard, Mrs. Bratchet, cheerful, clean, 

I and comely, was sitting by her fireside, the in- 
evitable Bible and hymn-book open before her, 
a kettle hissing on the hob, a comfortable 
supper spread out upon the little round table. 
And there was a savory smell, as of rashers of 
bacon frizzling and sputtering somewhere ; for 
“ works was works,” let faith be what it might, 
with good Mrs. Bratchet, when other people’s 
comfort had to be thought of. 

“Come your ways, honey,” she said, cheer- 
ily, as Gretchen, weary, dejected, came in with 
listless step. “ It’s rare and tired you are, I 
reckon. A plague on them musicianers keep- 
i ing folks out of their beds ; as I say it’s nought 
but the golden image Nebuchadnezzar set up, 
and the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and all the 
rest of the things everlastingly keeping on afore 
it. And you’ll be done for, that you will, hon- 
ey, if you’re to go on like this here. What’s 
the use o’ fine madames sending for you to. sing 
to ’em, if they can’t send you home with a bit 
more color in your cheeks ! A plague on ’em, 

I say, and that’s what I sav. And Fateh too, 


as she’s never been near her work this blessed 
day, a-prowling round, I warrant, among them 
singing folk. Marry, but I’m thinking it ’ud 
ha’ been a better turn for both on ye if you’d 
stopped and had the Bible chapter and the bit 
o’ prayer with me, same as common.” 

Gretchen said nothing; she was too tired 
and disappointed. Fast the cheerful home- 
liness of Mrs. Bratchet’s little drab -washed 
kitchen she seemed to see the gilded splen- 
dor of the great room at the hotel, and ma- 
dame in her satin robes, and the flash of the 
diamonds; and she felt the scented kiss upon 
her brow, and the touch of madame’s jeweled 
fingers — madame, who had been so kind, who 
had promised so much. And what did it all 
mean ? 

Gretchen clasped her hands behind her head. 

| “I am so much tired, Frau Bratchet, I can 
not eat. Let me say my good-night to you, 
and be still.” 

“ What, honey ! and never a bite o’ bacon, 
as I’ve had it frizzling for you this half-hour 
past, and the loaf o’ new bread, too ; for I’ve 
sung glory hallelujah my blessed self at the 
band meetings while I was that hungry I could 
have fastened on a dry crust, so it stands to 
reason I know what it is; and I made sure 
you’d be the same when you come in. But 
there’s never no telling. I’ve knowed you 
come from them practicings, and be fit to cat 
your bonnie head off— -not as I ever grudged 
it, honey, and that you know, for I always say 
let ’em enjoy their vittles if they can’t enjoy 
nothing else. And now you’re for going to 
bed on an empty stomach, as you’ll be that 
griped in the night you’ll never get a bit o’ 
sleep. But you must have a peppermint un- 
der your pillow — there’s nought stops it like, 
that. You remember, I give you one afore, 
honey, when you said you’d got that pain in 
your inside, as you couldn’t name it right ; and 
it cleared it off' in no time. And. then—” 

And Mrs. Bratchet, who had been looking 
in her corner cupboard for the remedy, turned 
round, but Gretchen had disappeared. By- 
and-by she heard the girl’s step in the room 
above. 

“Well, I never! But it’s them musician- 
ers, that’s what it is ! And the bacon to set 
by in the flit while morning, which it’s never 
so good again warmed. But I always said 
there was nought saving in it.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

Shortly after Gretchen and the white satin 
pritna donna had been driven in madame’s car- 
riage to the assembly-rooms, a stranger of 
foreign aspect was set down at the “ Crux- 
borough Arms.” After fortifying himself with 
a good dinner, some brandy and soda-water, 
and a cigar, he asked to be shown into Ma- 
dame Fortebracchio’s room. The waiter took 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


71 

him there, handed him the little note which 
madame had left for him, and went away. 

He was a swarthy man, largely made, with 
a deep, square chest, from which any amount 
of sound, melodious or otherwise, might be 
supposed to issue at command. Very hand- 
some — report certainly had not in that matter 
misrepresented him to Matilda Ballinger — but 
withal not pleasant-looking, for his black eyes 
seemed to have a curtain behind them, which 
kept an outsider from looking through to the col- 
or of the soul within ; and the rest of'the face 
was the face of a man who finds his portion — 
a satisfactory one, too — in the actualities of 
life rather than its possibilities. But still he 
■was a fine man, with an unmistakable presence 
of power about him. 

He stretched himself at full length upon the 
sofa, which had been drawn to the fire, and 
opened madame’s note, read it, threw it care- 
lessly aside. Such tilings came to him every 
day. Young girl with a fine voice, member of 
tiie organist’s choir, should be educated for the 
profession. Pooh ! madame was enthusiastic. 
He should like to know— and he began to reck- 
on them up on his fingers — how many won- 
derful voices she had found out in her various 
journeys through the provinces. How many 
young girls like this one had been picked out, 
raved about, praised, petted, caressed, and then 
forgotten by her ! Well, well, madame had 
her fancies — this was one. But let the girl be 
sent for. She had a pretty face, at any rate, 
according to the description, and that might 
be worth looking at, even though her voice, 
like a thousand others which madame had 
waxed eloquent over, should prove a myth. 

He threw the note into the fire, stretched 
himself out again on the sofa, drew in with a 
wide glance the richly- colored, luxurious com- 
fort of the room. It was what he delighted 
in. As he leaned his head back on the velvet 
cushion, an easy, indolent smile came over his 
face, followed, though, after a moment or two, 
by quite a different expression, as if of wonder, 
uncertainty, surprise meeting ; as if, coming 
into an empty room, he had suddenly felt upon 
his hand in the dark the clasp of an almost for- 
gotten friend. 

He rose, looked about him inquiringly, stir- 
red the fire into a blaze, that he might see into 
the dim recesses of the room; sat down for a 
while, rose again, shook the perfumed folds of 
the curtains, then began to walk up and down, 
still with that waiting,, wondering look upon 
his face, and a restldss sparkle in his black 
eyes. 

Suddenly he stopped. His foot had caught 
against something. It. was the blue ribbon 
which had fallen from Gretchen’s hair, and lay 
near the piano. He picked it up, went back 
to his sofa by the fire, and, as he again stretch- 
ed himself upon the soft cushions, he held the 
ribbon tightly between his two hands ; then, 
stooping down, he laid his lips upon it, and 
smiled a strange, satisfied smile. At last, put- 


ting it on his breast, he clasped his hands over 
it, and lay still for a long time. 

That was quite enough. He knew all now. 1 
Not the slightest consequence that madame, in i 
her hasty enthusiasm, had forgotten to tell him 
either the name or country of the little peasant 
maiden, of whose wonderful voice so much was 
to be made, if only he would exert his powers 
of persuasion upon her, make her leave En- 
gland, and go to Naples for a proper art edu- j 
cation. “Because,” as madame said, “ these 
friends and this love do so stand in the way ; 
and she must not be lost — she must be one of 
us.” 

Well, very well. So he had journeyed all 
these miles to find the little German peasant 
girl again. He held up the Himmelblau .ribbon, 
let the flickering fire-light fall upon it, pressed 
it between his hands again, as though to press 
all its meaning Out ; and another light began 
to burn in his eyes — a light as of conscious 
power and triumph and conquest. The silken 
curtains seemed to fade away from his sight, 
the gilded mirrors, the vases, the pictures, the 
flowers. Instead, he saw a German cottage 
home, with a flaxen-haired Frau spinning at its 
door, grave, honest, sagacious ; and in the gar- 
den, under the Dannerbaum, a rosy-faced maid- 
en sat, and sang as she knitted a gray stocking 
— sang ; then, lifting her blue eyes to him, and 
finding him looking so earnestly upon her, blush - 
ed. Blushed still rosier red, when, in the Con- 
servatoire, he stroked her soft round cheek, and 
praised her pretty voice ; then learned to trem- 
ble at his presence, and to come to him, drawn 
as if by some spell, when he willed it so. 
Quaint, shy little maiden, whom he would fain 
have taken away, that her sweet git l-face might 
be near him always ; but the sturdy, sagacious 
Frau had stepped in with her notions of what 
was fitting the daughter of a German peasant, 
and would look at no future for the girl but 
that of spinning at a humble cottage door, and 
calling some rough-faced wood-cutter her gut 
Mann. And then, finding that her logic was 
questioned, she quietly sent the girl away to 
England with some great lady who promised 
to take care of her ; so the good soul was at 
peace. 

And a wdiole year had passed, and he had 
found her again — found her here, in this dingy 
little city of Cruxborough — here, where no over- 
careful mother would bid her stay by her spin- 
ning-wheel, where no great lady was likely to 
swoop down upon her any more, where nothing 
stood between them except “these friends and 
this love ” which madame had spoken of. 

These friends and this love! As if either 
could stand in the way now. Notturino lifted 
his hands a little, and laid them quietly again 
upon the blue ribbon. Where, how did she 
live ? it did not tell that. But he would soon 
know. And he smiled to think of the good 
Frau spinning over there at Stuttgart, so safe- 
ly, so comfortably, because Gretchen was all 
right now. 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


7 £ 


!r 


it 

13 


II 




. There was a step on the stair, and a rustle 
of satin and a glimmer of jewels, and madame, 
I flushed and smiling, clasping to her an armful 
of bouquets, came into the room. 

“Ah, signor; and you have come, and you 
have my note, and you wait for me. You must 
hear her, and you will say that I have not told 
you the half. Ah ! but how simple she is, and 
how fair, and how innocently she clasps her 
hands and courtesies. All the world must one 
day listen to her ! Ah ! poor little one, I should 
have spoken to her again, but I was tired, and 
that room is so hot ; and I had forgotten, too, 
that when I had finished she must still stop 
there in the chorus, so I came away ; but I will 
make it all right to-morrow. You do not know 
how good she is. Ah ! but if we could always 
be young and simple.” 

“I know all that you can say,” replied the 
signor, carelessly, rising, however, and bowing 
with due respect to madame. “ This ribbon 
has told me.” 

And he held up poor little Gretchen’s love- 
token. 

Madame shook her head incredulously. 

“ That is like you, indeed — that is what you 
always say. As if the girl could have left any 
of herself in that bit of ribbon.” 

“ She has left enough to tell me that she is 
some German peasant maid. I know that, you 
i see.” 

Madame lifted her eyebrows. 

“And has it told you where she lives, and 


| how ?” 

| “ No, signora ; you may do that, if you will. 

The ribbon left just so much for you to say.” 

Then madame began her story. How Gret- 
chen lodged with a respectable woman named 
1 Bratchet, in an old tumble-down building which 
I was once a college ; and how she had made 
friends with some people who had been very 
; good to her, and had offered to make a home 
for her in their own house. And madame 
i thought, but she was uot quite sure, that these 
j were “the friends whom I love,” who might 
' perhaps stand in the way of Grctchen becom- 
! ing a great singer ; and therefore she had been 
so very anxious that the signor should come 
[ and do what he could to persuade her. 

“For what,” said madame, “ are these friends 
whom she loves if they keep her from her true 
J place in our art? And why should she stay 
j here with the Frau Bratchet, who is forever 
praying and washing, when she might become 
1 one of us, and have her name in our great 
; temple ? Notturino, you must make her leave 
these people.” 

Notturino smiled a peculiar smile. That 
was just the very thing he meant to do. So he 
! promised to hear the girl sing next day ; and 
j when he returned to London in the evening, to 
! fulfill some engagements there, he would see 
j what arrangements could be made for having 
I her sent to Naples, and properly educated. 

And he would have promised every thing else 
I in the world that madame wanted, only just 


then more of the singers came trooping in, and 
a waiter announced that supper was ready be- 
low. 

Signor Notturino wanted no supper, only 
more brandy and soda-water ; and then he 
wrapped himself in his great cloak, and sallied 
out to find this old college yard where the Frau 
Bratchet lived. 

Roger Monkeston, coming home late from 
his work that night — coming, too, full of fears, 
forebodings, and half- stifled hopes, which 
crowded upon him all the more busily now be- 
cause he had been forced to banish them so 
far away for a few hours, paused for a moment 
as he passed the little east door where, after the 
oratorio was over, he had stood with Gretchen. 
It was quite dark now ; neither moon nor stars 
were out, and no merry bells stirred the air 
with their music any more. As he lingered 
there, just to bring to himself the feeling of her 
presence again, to live over again that little 
half-hour in which they had come so near each 
other, a sudden, sharp blast of wind smote down 
upon him. It was as if some great wing had 
swooped by, almost touching his face. He 
shivered ; he had never felt it like that before. 
Just then a cloaked figure came out from the 
shadow behind the Chapter House. 

“ Is the old college yard near here?” 

Roger pointed across toward the market- 
place. 

“About a quarter of a mile away. Past the 
south front and down the High Street. Shall 
I go with you and show you ?” 

“ No, thank you. I can find it alone.” 

Roger went home. One of the Festival 
strangers most likely. But he -would do his 
sight-seeing better, certainly, by daylight. 

That night Gretchen could not sleep. She 
started and moaned in her bed. The darkness 
seemed to her full of dreams and visions. She 
felt as if she must rise and go away after a 
voice which was calling her; calling from the 
old home days at Stuttgart, calling her out into 
the cold October night. Once and again she 
arose and wandered up and down the room, 
listened at the curtained window, but heard 
only the wind moaning through the college 
archway, and the slow measured tread of a 
heavy foot — the watchman’s, perhaps — in the 
court-yard below. 

Mrs. Bratchet awoke. She thought the girl 
was walking in her sleep. When she found 
she was quite conscious, only excited and rest- 
less, she bade her lie down again, and dived 
into the pocket of her lilac-print gown for a 
peppermint lozenge. 

“ Take that, honey. It’ll do you a power 
of good. There’s nought like a bit o’ pepper- 
mint when you can’t go off easy. It’s them 
musicianers has done it, I’ll warrant. And 
that’s what comes of little folks like you going 
about among them as don’t belong to you. 
It’s ill walking in silver slippers, honey, when 
they don’t fit your feet. And I knew it, as 
sure as sure, that you wouldn’t get a bit o T 


76 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


sleep for the wind in your inside when you put 
your supper by without so much as looking at 
it. Come your ways back to bed, and if you 
don’t lie easy, just start with your prayers 
again. I’ve known that send ’em off like a 
christened baby when nought else did no good.” 

Mrs. Bratchet did not know that until mid- 
night the dark-faced signor was pacing that 
old college yard, sending out his strong will 
toward Gretchen, weak, worn out, and weary. 
And, as he looked up at the little window, he 
said to himself, 

“ She will come. I know she will come.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Patch waited in vain at the Chapter House 
door all through that first morning of the Fes- 
tival. Carriage after carriage rolled up as she 
crouched there under the battered old gurgoyle. 
The prima donna, in her rosy raiment, swept 
magnificently past into the gorgeous gloom of 
the vestibule. The pea-green satin contralto 
stepped daintily down, drawing her skirts aside 
from touch of the ill-clad woman who cared so 
little for her or her splendor. The conductor, 
with his ponderous roll of music, bustled in, 
and the good little Kapellmeister, brisk, lively, 
as was his wont ; but with none of them came 
the dark-faced signor for whom she watched, 
for whom her hollow eyes sparkled with that 
hungry glare of expectancy. At last, when the 
oratorio must have been nearly over, she arose, 
stretched herself wearily, and went round to 
the great west doors, where several officials 
were standing about. 

“ Terrible disappointment, this,” said one of 
them, “about Notturino. It is not often that 
he fails.” 

Patch slipped aside behind the shadow of 
the crimson awning, and listened. 

“Will he come to-night, think you?” 

“ Uncertain, quite uncertain. And we have 
a good enough basso for the cantata. But he 
has promised to come without fail for the per- 
formance to-morrow morning.” 

“Ah, then, we shall manage, but when things 
go wrong at first it is awkward. A good be- 
ginning for numbers, is it not ?” 

“ Tolerable. Madame Fortebracchio always 
draws. If one can only secure her, a perform- 
ance is sure to pay.” 

And then they began to talk about the ticket 
arrangements, which had been carried out so 
successfully. 

Patch did not care to hear about them. She 
wandered on to the station, met all the London 
trains which came in in time for the evening 
concert, received a few sixpences from benevo- 
lent travelers who thought she was a foreigner 
in distress ; and then, fierce and disappointed, 
turned back to the assembly-rooms, which were 
already besieged by crowds of people waiting to 
get good places in the back seats. 


Presently the carriage folks began to arrive. 
Patch pushed forward to the front of a line 
formed of ragged women and children, on each 
side the entrance, to the reserved seats and art- 
ists’ rooms. Possibly he might come, though 
she had missed him at the station. 

Still she watched in vain. Still that keen, 
hungry look deepened in her eyes. At last a 
carriage drove up, and the pj-ima donna alighted, 
not in rosy raiment this time, but •with a sheen 
of white satin about her that shone like moon- 
light through the dim glare of the lamps ; and 
tripping by her side was a little blue-petticoat- 
ed maiden, through whose close -woolen hood 
peeped the golden curls and rosy cheeks of 
Gretchen, the lacquering girl. 

“Ha, then — how comes this?” muttered 
Patch, when the two had disappeared. “It 
likes me not. The good Frau Muller would 
spin with a heavy heart to-night if she could 
know.” 

And, slipping back through the crowd, Patch 
went straight to the hotel where she knew 
Madame Fortebracchio was staying. 

The waiters, who were never too busy for a 
chat with the odd Italian woman, told her that 
Gretchen had been sent for by madaim who 
had heard her sing at the oratorio. Tin rtrl 
been nearly an hour together in madame’s id n; 
and then had gone to the concert; bi thet 
was all she could learn. Had the great g< r 
come yet ? No ; but madame had left 
for the Signor Notturino in case he she i< 
rive before her return, which c$uld not 1 
for the last London train had just come n. 

Patch nodded. One night more o . • iy 
for Gretchen, at any rate. 

“Have a mouthful?” said a bene 1 
disposed waiter, whisking past with a 
dinner scraps. “You look as if you wouidr i 
mind a little filling-up. You’re as starved as 
a mastiff.” 

“Ay, and as savage, too,” said Patch, turn- 
ing away, however, from the offered bone ; “ but 
hunger’s a good thing to keep your temper up. 
No, thank you, I shall go and hear a little 
more music.” 

And she went back to the concert-room, 
passing, on her way, the cab which was bring- 
ing Notturino from the station. He had just 
arrived from a little country town, where he 
had been making engagements for Madame 
Fortebracchio. But no spirit in the air told 
her that he whom she waited for was so near. 
Arrived at the assembly-rooms, she saw Gret- 
chen, cloaked and hooded, standing in the cor- 
ridor, went up to her, and was hearing the girl’s 
story, when a voice behind gave her fresh work 
to do. 

“Notturino has come. It is all right now; 
we shall have him at the oratorio to-morrow. 
We need not fear for our Festival any more. 
The tickets have begun to go off already.” 

Patch slipped away just as the blue-rosetted 
steward came to “ disperse ” poor little Gretchen 
for blocking up the road, and hurried to the 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


77 


hotel. Yes, the signor hud come. There was 
his luggage, piled up in the corner of the lobby. 
And was he to be seen now ? No, he had gone 
out — to see the town, most likely, the waiter 
thought, for he was wrapped up well, and had 
taken a cigar with him ; but when he would 
come in again was his own affair. These sing- 
ers were a queer, merry set ; there was no tell- 
ing of their goings and comings. 

So Patch went out again into the dark. 
Nothing for her now it seemed but perpetual 
going out into the dark, and looking through 
into lighted places which she might never en- 
ter. It was hopeless to find Notturino now, 
and even if she could, what use would it be ? 
Her only way was to watch quietly over Gret- 
chen, to keep her, if possible, from being brought 
into the company of this man, who could work 
her nothing but evil. No need for her to talk, 
only to watch, and to act, if the time came for 
that. 

She went to the assembly-rooms again; 
Gretchen had disappeared. Madame Forte- 
bracchio too, she learned, had gone. Then 
she returned once more to the hotel. No, 
Gretchen was not there ; the prima donna had 
been accompanied only by some of her com- 
panion singers, and the maid who always at- 
tended upon her. Finally, she went to the 
house in the college yard. Through the un- 
curtained window she saw the Frau Bratchet 
bustling about, putting away what seemed to 
be the remains of supper. Upon the drawn 
Idiad of the little room above, a shadow — Gret- 
chen’s shadow — moved to and fro ; then the 
light was put out, and all was still. Looking 
into the kitchen again, she saw a blue cloak 
lying on the end of Mrs. Bratchet’s settle. All 
was safe, then. So far, so good. 

“But oh, that this Festival were over!” 
said Patch to herself, as she dragged her slow 
steps away to Daniel’s cottage by the Crux- 
borough station. “One might begin to be 
quiet then.” 

o 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

In the very early dawn of the morning, but 
not before Mrs. Bratchet had had her own pri- 
vate diet of devotion, and been bustling about 
for more than an hour over her household mat- 
ters, honest Gurtha knocked at the door of the 
little house in the college yard. 

“ You’re up betimes,” she said, as, after hav- 
ing tried the latch, she walked in and found 
the good -woman folding up a screen full of 
linen, which had been left to air off the night 
before. “I thought I should ha’ roused you 
out o’ your bed, and the Minster only gone six 
this just a bit since.” 

“Bed, indeed!” said Mrs. Bratchet, count- 
ing out her piles of things before she sorted 
them into their respective baskets. “It isn’t 
much bed sees of me nowadays, and folks fly- 
ing at me fit to tear me to pieces if their things 


isn’t back to the min it. I don’t know where I 
should find myself if I didn’t get a good hold, as 
you may say, of the fore-front of the day, and 
pull through that way. And that Patch, too, as 
I’ll eat my own wash-tub if I’ve had a penny- 
worth of work out of her this more’n a week 
past, let alone carrying out the baskets — no, 
nor sha’n’t, neither, while all this musicianing 
deed’s agate, for a plague as it is. And there’s 
the starch things to Ballingers, three dozen on 
’em, and the body-linen to Mrs. Balmain, and 
them dress-shirts to the ‘Cruxborough Arms.’ 
I wish it were all sided out of the place, and 
that do I.” 

“ You can’t wish no better,” said Gurtha, 
rightly inferring that Mrs. Bratchet’s last re- 
mark applied to the Festival, rather than to 
the piles of linen which cumbered her little 
room. “The place is fairly given over to the 
works of the flesh, as nobody can’t persuade me 
such-like goings on is ought else ; and there’ll 
come a reckoning for it, see if there won’t. But 
I’m vexed you’re throng this morning, gammer, 
for I ran over to see if you could come and help 
us a bit. The missis has been took i’ the fore- 
part of the night wi’ one of them nasty faints, 
and she don’t seem to come round proper.” 

“ Lawkamassy !” said Mrs. Bratchet, “ that’s 
a bad job ! I’ve telled the missis over and 
over again as them there faints wasn’t a thing 
to let alone. You never know what may come on 
’em. There was a lady I lived cook with afore 
I was married, went off wi’ nought else right 
away, and you couldn’t tell for ever so long but 
what she was asleep, she lay that still and quiet, 
and the blessedest smile ever you see on her 
face. And when the missis started with ’em 
after she got agate with the shop here, thinks 
I to myself, that’s how she’ll go some day if 
she don’t look to it.” 

“It isn’t so bad as all that, yet,” said Gur- 
tha. “ I don’t doubt she’ll come round in 
time. But I’ve seed her falling off this good 
bit past, and I've telled her myself, and so has 
Miss Jean and young master, it was with work- 
ing overhard in that there shop. But, law, 
Mrs. Bratchet, what’s the use? If you will, 
you must.” 

“That’s it, honey,” said Mrs. Bratchet, a 
look of real concern overclouding her bright, 
cheery face. “ She was always a woman was 
the missis, bless her ! as couldn’t rest easy on 
her bed without she’d made it herself. I’ve 
been at her oft to take it a bit quieter, but you 
might as well stand up afore Stack’s mill-wheel 
at the Willowmarshes and tell it to stop turning 
when the water’s high. It’s in her, and that’s 
where it is. You’ve got a doctor surely, though ; 
them faints isn’t a thing to be let alone.” 

“ Yes, she’s w r ell looked to. . Miss Jean sent 
for him when salts and that sort o’ thing didn’t 
fetch her round, and he says it’s nought but bran- 
dy’ll do it. And she’s come back a bit since we 
gived it her ; but she don’t seem to find herself, 
as you may say, and mumbles a deal. And 
Miss Jean, she don’t leave her not a minute, 


7 & 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


and Mr. Roger a-wandering about, as it’s just 
the way wi’ the men when there’s a bit o’ sick- 
ness going, and looks that oneasy and onset- 
tied while you might think he’d done it hisself. 
Which maybe it’s a judgment on him for these 
here goings on at the Minster, as I say, it’ll have 
to come somewhere afore long, and them dress- 
ed -up folks, like the kings and queens in a 
waxworks, a-standing up there and flinging the 
Almighty’s words in his face, as you may say, 
as if the blessed Book was for nought but to be 
cut up into their jigs and songs. If that isn’t 
taking Ilis name in vain, tell me what is, and 
I’ll hold my tongue. Good for the charities of 
the place, indeed ! as Mr. Roger said to me 
when I teiled him he’d ought to be ashamed of 
such-like goings on, and they was to give the 
profits to the hospital. I’d rather take a dis- 
pensary note and fend for myself than I’d lay 
me down on a hospital bed as was kep’ up that 
way — no, let it be the best goose-feathers as 
ever come off a Willowmarsh farm.” 

“ They do say the dispensary’s to get it, too, 
though,” quoth Mrs. Bratchet ; “but, maybe, 
you won’t have an affliction for a good bit yet. 
You’re a strong sort.” 

“Thank the Lord for that,” said Gurtha, tying 
up both present mercies and future contingen- 
cies in the knot of her thankfulness. “ It isn’t 
much the doctors ever got out of me, let alone 
hospitals, as thrives on the devil’s pence that 
way. But you’ll make shift to come over, Mrs. 
Bratchet, won’t you, if it’s nobbut an hour or 
two, while I get through the thick end of the 
work, so as I can wait in the shop while Miss 
Jean does for the missis ?” 

“Ay, ay,” said Mrs. Bratchet, “don’t you 
fidget. I’ll none see Mrs. Monkeston stuck fast 
while I’ve a pair of hands to help her, let the 
body-linen go where it will. I’ll just straiten 
things round a bit, and step up. There’s the 
little wench yonder;” and Mrs. Bratchet jerk- 
ed her thumb in the direction of the staircase. 
“ I lay she won’t want to stir but this morning, 
for she’s had a pottering night of it, with wind 
in her inside, as I told her what it ’ud be when 
she put the bacon by without so much as look- 
ing at it, and never a bite of any thing to fill 
her up comfortable ; so I reckon she’ll be glad 
enough to sit still in the house, and then she 
can answer the door if any body comes. She’s 
laid on my mind a deal, is that poor girl ; but 
we mustn’t stay to talk about it, and the missis 
wanting you. Tell Miss Jean I’ll be up for 
certain afore it’s time to open the shop.” 

And the two women parted. 

Poor little Gretchen woke, weary and dis- 
pirited, to battle as best she could with a new 
day of excitement. Mrs. Bratchet, whose re- 
ligion was practical as well as doctrinal, bade 
her stay quietly in bed for a time, instead of 
rising as usual to help in the housework ; and 
then, after taking her up a comfortable break- 
fast, she set to work and ironed but the mus- 
lin bodice, whose freshness had been somewhat 
dimmed by two public appearances. 


Mrs. Bratchet had her doubts, even as Gur- 
tha, about that “ musicianing,” especially the 
evening part of the performance ; but, unlike 
Gurtha, she had a vein of good-natured tolera- 
tion underlying the tougher formation of her 
theology, which upon occasion cropped to the 
surface, and formed, as it were, a soil in which 
now and then little wild-flowers of charity took 
root and blossomed. At times, she even rose 
to a dim appreciation of youth, beauty, high 
spirits, and other passing frivolities, which, in 
her shorter catechism, were set forth as the lust 
of the flesh, the lust of the' eye, and the pride of 
life. 

“Folks will be young,” she said to herself, 
as, with a certain pride in her handiwork — 
which pride, of course, had not the most distant 
relationship with the three divisions of worldli- 
ness already mentioned — she ironed out and 
set the frills of the muslin bodice. “Law 
bless me ! when there’s a pretty face to show, 
where’s the harm of setting it off a bit ? I re- 
member the time when I was as fond of a flower- 
ed print as any body else, or I don’t think my 
old man, bless him ! would ha’ been so keen af- 
ter me. A bit o’ color pleases the men, it does, 
and I don’t blame them as lets ’em have it. 
Nobbut may the Lord keep her out of harm’s 
way while she gets somebody to look to her 
reg’lar. She’ll be all right, only she gets set- 
tled wi’ some one as’ll pet her up a bit.” 

And then Mrs. Bratchet took her another 
cup of coffee ; and while Gretchen sgt up in bed^ 
to drink it, she read a portion, and sang a gooti 
lusty thanksgiving hymn, and then offered up 
a lengthy prayer, whose chief burden was that 
this youthful handmaiden might be preserved 
from the snares of the world, the flesh, and the 
devil, and have her face turned Zionward, and 
her feet directed to a city of habitation where- 
in she might praise her Maker all the days of 
her life — a prayer which seemed to Gretchen, 
like bells sounding through a mist ; but the cup 
of coffee, and the good hearty kiss which Frau 
Bratchet gave her when she had finished it, 
were more intelligible. 

“ How you are good!” she said, with a wist- 
ful look in her blue eyes, as Mrs. Bratchet went 
round the bedroom, giving a few tidying touch- 
es here and there. “ I wish you could love my 
music, for then I would sing to you while you 
do work, and it would seem to you that the time 
was not long. Your music is not beautiful, it 
makes me that I do want to laugh ; but you are 
very good yourself. Ah, Frau Bratchet, how 
much better you do live than you do sing!” 

“ Mercy on us !” said that practical woman, 
“what do the child be talking about? And 
such a good one as I was always reckoned to 
set the tunes ! But go your ways, honey, and 
lay you down and rest a bit, while the vittles 
has time to settle. And then you must make 
yourself ready for the wliat’n-ye-call-it, in the 
Minster, else you’ll be all of a muddle when the 
time comes. And when you’re dressed, may- 
be you’ll sit you by the fireside, and keep a look- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


out to answer the door against any one comes, 
for Gurtha’s been to hid me if I can go to help 
them a hit. Mrs. Monkeston’s been took ill, 
poor thing, and they’re hard set with the shop 
and all that.” 

“Ah! madame with the good, grave face; 
and she has been so kind to me, and she otter- 
ed to me that I should be at home with her, 
and help her, that she should not always have 
to be in the shop. And she is ill, and she will 
need it more than ever that I should go.” 

“Ah, honey, and a good thing for yourself, 
too, when you get fixed with somebody respect- 
able, as you don’t need to be always coming 
and going by yourself. And there’s no telling 
what might come of it, neither,” added Mrs. 
Bratchet, thinking of the handsome young me- 
chanic, who, to her certain knowledge, had 
brought Gretchen home more than once from 
the singing-class. “I don’t know as Mrs. 
Monkeston ’ud stir a finger again’ it, if it turned 
that way. It mightn’t be a bad thing, being 
as she isn’t a woman that ever thought a deal 
about monej'.” 

“ No,” said Gretchen, innocently, not under- 
standing this previsionary hint ; “ but I did 
not tell you, good Frau Bratchet, for I was so 
tired when I came home last night. Madame 
the prirna clonna was very good to me when I 
did go to sing to her, and she said she would 
name me to her friends, that I should go far 
. away and be taught to be a great singer. 
Now, then, Frau Bratchet, what say you to 
that?’’. 

“Mercy on us, child! Why, I say you’d a 
vast better stop where you are, and be took care 
of, and addle an honest penny to yourself, and 
that’s what I say. Little folks is best left to 
their own sort, and I don’t know what needs 
yon fine lady, with her silks and her satins, 
and all the rest, tp trouble her head about you. 
She’d better let you alone, to my thinking. 
And Mrs. Monkeston, as there isn’t a better 
woman in the place, ready to take to you like 
her own child ; and if it’s the music you’re af- 
ter, why, there’s Mr. Grant sets that store by 
you as I think you might frame to be a bit 
content. It’s ill wear, honey, is a gown as was 
never made to fit you.” 

“ Oh ! but, Frau Bratchet, Mr. Grant can not 
teach me as it would be if madame were my 
friend. And she was good to me. She said 
I was to come and speak to her after the con- 
cert last night, and I did wait at the door a 
long time, and some one looked cross at me, 
and asked me why stood I there ; and when I 
told him I did wait for madame, he pushed 
wide open the door, and they said madame had 
gone, so she must have forgotten me. But 
this afternoon, when I sing in the chorus, she 
will remember me again, and will send for me, 
because she did promise me so much.” 

“Likely enough, child. That’s the way 
with them grand folks. And so a little wench 
like you mus^ go standing in among all them 
people, and some on ’em fiytin’ at you as you 


come home that scared you couldn’t eat a bite 
nor sup, and all because madame had forgotten. 
Forgotten, indeed ! It’s nought else but for- 
getting with such like. You’re best among 
your own sort, honey, take an old woman’s 
word.” 

“ Yes, but, Frau Bratchet, you do not look to 
the end. If I might give up my life to it, I 
should one day be much rich, and then I would 
come back to see you again, because I would 
keep you always in my heart — you who were 
so good to me. And then you might hear me 
sing even the solo parts at the Festival here, 
and I would have a beautiful dress, like ma- 
dame, and no longer this woolen petticoat, and 
all the people would praise me.” 

“ ‘Let all the people praise Thee, 0 God ;’ 
the blessed Scriptures says that, honey, and 
when he’s had his due it’ll be time enough 
to get agate o’ your own. However, it isn’t 
for me to say nought. It’s in better hands 
nor mine where you’re to come and where 
you’re to go. If I was to say as I feel I’d a 
vast rather see you set up i’ the chapel-loft, 
singing the songs o’ Zion, with your face thith- 
erward, nor have a ticket for the front seats o’ 
the Festival, and see you dressed up like ma- 
dame, wi’ your silks and your velvets, and all 
the people praising you as you set such store 
by. But I mun be going, for I promised Gur- 
tha I’d give a look in afore it were time to open 
the shop.” 

“And will you say, please, how that I am 
sorry for madame, and for the Fraulein Monk- 
eston, whom I love so much?” 

“ Yes, yes, honey. It ivould ha’ helped ’em 
a vast more though if you could ha’ gone and 
set in the shop a bit, while Miss Jean tended 
her mother ; but you're not fit for that to-day, 
let alone yon carrying on i’ the Minster. And 
I don’t know when I shall be back ; if the 
missis isn’t no better, it may be a good while 
first ; but there’s cold meat in the closet under 
the stairs, and you can fettle a bit o’ dinner for 
yourself, and you know where the ’taters is 
and every think else. And if I’m not back 
afore it’s time to start, you’ll mind to lock the 
door, and put the key on that bit o’ brick just 
behind the right-hand shutter, so as I can lay 
my hand on it i’ the dark.” 

“Yes,” said Gretchen, nestling down among 
the pillows, “I will do every thing what you 
wish. And if it is not that madame does send 
for me I will help the Fraulein so much as I 
can to-morrow.” 

“That’s right, honey. She’d do the same 
for you, I warrant. And if Fateh does turn 
up — not as it’s likely she will, but there’s never 
no telling — them starch things in the hand- 
basket is to the ‘ Cruxborough Arms,’ and the 
shirts to Ballinger’s, and the body -linen to 
Mrs. Balmain’s. You won’t forget ? And 
you’re not afeard to be left with yourself, or 
I’d get one of the neighboi'S to come in and sit 
.a bit.” 

“ Oh no, thank you,” said Gretchen, having 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


I 

80 

I a dim vision of interminable prayers and hymns 
! if one of the Frau Bratchet’s friends came in. 
“It is well that I be alone. There is no one 
to fear.” 

“Then you’re well off,” said Mrs. Bratchet. 

: And with that she left her. 


CHATTER XXX. 

But Gretchen really was distressed, though 
the dread of an unlimited succession of devo- 
tional exercises, if one of Mrs. Bratchet’s fel- 
! low-members came in, prevented her from own- 
ing it. That weary, wakeful, restless night 
, had taken a great deal of strength out of her. 
It had left her unusually sensitive to surround- 
ing impressions. As she lay there alone in her 
little bedroom the silence almost stifled her. 
j She was thankful for the steady humdrum tick- 
| ing of the old clock, or the occasional chirp of 
| the linnet in its cage down stairs, to break that 
j dread monotony of solitude which was closing 
I her round. Every fibre in her seemed strain- 
i ed, every sense quickened. Again it Avas as 
though voices called to her from far off. She 
' could not rest, she could not be quiet; she could 
i not even any more busy herself Avith pleasant 
; dreams of what might come to her through ma- 
: dame’s promised remembrance. A stone had 
been dropped by some unseen hand into the 
| clear pool of thought, and every image there 
i showed noAV confused, quivering, uncertain. 

It Avas past eleven o’clock ; the sun shone 
broadly and bravely into her window when she 
began to get up and dress for the Festival. 
That dressing Avas a little help. It gave her 
i thoughts something to do. She could not for 
! a Avliile listen to herself Avith such intense con- 
J sciousness. The good Frau Bratchet had made 
that crumpled muslin bodice look so fresh 
again! The sunshine flashing upon her hair 
brought out so brightly its lAing gold! Gret- 
; then felt almost happy as she stood before the 
cracked looking-glass and Avove those rippling 
masses in and out. Only, Avhere Avas the blue 
j ribbon ? 

j She looked all over for it, shook out her pet- 
ticoat, her kirtle, her Avoolen hood ; but there 
was no ribbon. She must have dropped it as 
: she Avas running home the night before, and 
she would never see it again ; and what Avould 
Herr Monkeston say, for she had promised him 
to Avear it all through the Festival? It Avas 
her only ribbon, too. Without it she could not 
gather her hair up in that pretty English Avay 
that she had learned in the lacquering-room. 
i She must pull it all down again, and make it 
! into tAvo long plaits on each side, as she used 
to wear it in her mother’s house. 

Gretchen pouted as she looked at herself in 
the glass Avhen that Avas done. There did not 
seem half so much of her noAV. She felt quite 
small and insignificant. And yet it brought 
back to her so strangely the time Avhen she Avore 


it so in the Conservatoire at Stuttgart, and the 
signor used sometimes to take up the long 
plaits in his hand, and stroke them, and call 
her scliones Madchen , and make the red gloAV 
come into her cheeks. 

Gretchen shivered violently. And yet the 
warm October sun Avas shining in so brightly 
all the time. 

il Ach, if some one would come and speak to 
me!” murmured the girl, as she clasped her 
hands and leaned her face doAvn upon them. 

“I would not then be so lonely.” 

And she thought of the little house in Bish- 
op’s Lane. Could it be only yesterday morn- 
ing, and it seemed like a Avhole year ago that 
she had sat in the Avarm fire-light of the Frau- 
lein Monkeston’s room, with the clasp of a kind 
hand upon her OAvn, the touch of a loving kiss 
upon her cheek. And she had been so happy 
to think that soon, when this Festival Avas over, 
she should be at home there always. Yet what 
hindered that she should not be at home there 
still? Ah, what? Gretchen could not tell. 
But something lay between her and the old life. 
There Avas no longer for her any reality in it. 
Something seemed draAving her away, aAvay 
Avhither she could not tell. 

“If some one Avould speak to me!” mur- 
mured poor little Gretchen again. 

And the old clock ticked, and the linnet 
chirped, and the golden October sun shone in, 
and far-off a hum of busy life was arising out * 
of the croAvded streets ; but in the room all was 
so lonely, and every sound Avas like a myster^ 
rious, living, invisible presence. 

Then she put on her embroidered petticoat 
and clear muslin bodice, and laced up her black 
kirtle, and fastened it with the little bunch of 
blue ribbon ; and, last of all, slung the leather 
pouch round her Avaist, looping it in among the 
folds of her dress. Perhaps she had put the 
Himinelsblau ribbon in there to take care of 
it. No; but there Avas the bit of paper which 
madame had slipped into her hand the night 
before. 

Gretchen opened it. It AA’as a five-pound 
note. She had never had a five-pound note 
in her hands before, but she knew it represent- 
ed the value of ten Aveeks’ Avork in the lacquer- 
ing-room. Ten whole AA'eeks’ wages, and Avith 
no labor or trouble of hers, but just singing 
those songs to madame ! Oh, hoAV rich she 
aatis, and Hoav much she could do noAV ! And 
if she did go away, she would buy something 
for every one. The good Frau Bratchet should 
have a lilac* print gOAvn for Sundays, and Patch 
a scarlet shaAvl ; and perhaps the Fraulein 
Monkeston Avould permit that she offered to 
her some little remembrance — a kerchief of 
embroidery, such as the Edelfrauen in her OAvn 
country Avore on festa days, only it should be 
of her own Avork ; and there was no time for 
that, for if madame took her away it would 
be very soon. Ah, the good madame ! And 
Gretchen put the note carefully back into her 
little pouch, and >vent down into the kitchen. 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


This thinking of other people had taken away 
some of her sadness. She began to sing to 
herself, in soft, sweet under-tones, the song 
which had won her so. much praise, “ Kennst du 
das Land?" 

But even as she sang she became restless 
again. She could not go on. She arose, and 
wandered up and down ; then paused — listen- 
ed. A voice was calling her away, and no 
good Frau Bratchet now bid her lie still and 
say her prayers. 

“If some one would speak to me!” sighed 
the poor child again. 

She had scarcely said the words when the 
door was opened, and Patch came in. Gret- 
chen almoft sprang into the woman’s arms. 

“Ah ! then, I am glad, for I was all alone, 
and the silence did cover me like a cloud, 
that I could, not breathe. Now again do I 
live.” 

“What makes you be alone, child, and so 
gay, too ?” said Patch, glancing quickly round 
the room, and then at the bright fcsta dress. 
“Have you been to sing to madame again?” 

“No,” and the little sparkle of light began 
already to go out of Gretchen’s eyes. “ I 
think that madame did forget me last night. 
I had waited long before you came to me, and 
then they told me she was gone ; and the gen- 
tleman was cross to me, and thought that I did 
beg, and spoke that I was too young and too 
strong for that, as if I did not already know, 
which made me feel that I had no longer any 
spM&deft. r .and I came away alone, and I could 
not sleep, and I am much tired.” 

“Poor little one !” And Patch looked ear- 
nestly into the girl’s face. “That is the way 
with the great people ; they say what is all fair 
and pleasant, and they win from you your love, 
and then they forget. Yet I would it might 
be so now with others than madame, for then 
could I rest content. But some remember too 
long. And where is Mrs. Bratchet, that you 
are here alone?” 

“Ah, £hen, that is sad ! There came early 
this morning a message that she should go to 
Madame Monkeston, who is ill. She has had 
what you call a faint, and they must have some 
one to help, that the Fiaulein Jean shall not 
be always in the shop.” 

“And why should not you go, child ? You 
were better there than here.” 

Gretchen shook her head impatiently. 

“The Frau Bratchet also said that was my 
duty. No, it is my duty that I wait for ma- 
dame, if she does send for me again, and that 
I go to the Festival. There is something with 
me that I can not give myself elsewhere. And 
the Frau Bratchet did say,” added Gretchen, 
hurriedly, as if to change the conversation, 
“that if you did come, there was the covered 
basket to Mrs. Ballinger, and the linen to Mrs. 
Balmain, and the other things to the ‘ Crux- 
borough Arms.’ I did say it to myself three 
times that I should not forget — the covered 
basket to Mrs. Ballinger, and the linen to Mrs. 

6 ♦ 


81 

Balmain, and the other things to the £ Crux- 
borough Arms.’ ” 

“ I will see to them. "So you have not been 
to the hotel again, then, and madame has not 
sent for you?” 

“No; and I think and I wonder, and all 
seems to me strange, and I have now no spirit 
that I should go forward.” 

“The better for you, child. I would fain 
see you at home with the good Mrs. Monkeston, 
and the singing forgotten. I should then have 
a good heart, but now I am full of fears. This 
to the ‘ Cruxborough Arms.’ ” And Patch 
shouldered the basket of starch things. “It 
may be I shall there hear somewhat of ma- 
dame, and what she means to do. Farewell, 
little one. Keep thee quietly at home ; thou 
wilt be nowhere better.” 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

“Keep thee quietly at home, little one.” 

But who should give the quietness ? For 
there came over her again, when Patch had 
gone, that strange, oppressive feeling of re- 
straint and loneliness. Yet not loneliness: 
there seemed a living presence near her — a 
power which she could neither realize nor un- 
derstand, slowly drawing her away from her- 
self. 

She began to wander up and down again. , 
Again there came that piteous longing for some 
one to speak to, something to break this spell, 
which was slowly tightening upon her. There 
was a gentle knock. Gretchen stood still, ev- 
ery nerve and fibre within her quivering silent- 
ly. After a moment or two Notturino came 
in, closed the door, and stood with his back to 
it ; but he never spoke— only looked steadfast- 
ly at the startled, trembling girl. 

As if drawn by some subtle force, she came 
slowly forward with outstretched hands. Not- 
turino took them when she had come near 
enough, and held them so that they could 
tremble no more. 

“ See, then, child, how useless that thou 
shouldst go away from me! Thou canst not 
choose but thou must come if I do but call 
thee with my look.” He kissed her white 
forehead, then put her a little away from him, 
the better to see her face. “Ah! little one,” 
he said, touching the long golden braids which 
lay upon her shoulder, “ thou hast not changed 
so very much since the days when thou didst 
sit under the Dannerbaum and sing so sweetly. 
And thy mother sent thee away — the good 
soul ! But thou dost not say thou art glad to 
see me. 

“Nay, nay,” he continued, as Gretchen 
would have drawn her hands out of his steady, 
strong grasp; “thou canst not go away, and 
I have yet much to say to thee. And so they 
would make of thee a great singer ? Is it so ?” 

“ Yes, signor,” said Gretchen, looking down. 


82 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


And she could say no more. She was con- 
scious of nothing save this voice, this face, this 
will drawing her own tifter it. 

“And madame has smiled upon thee, and 
will be thy friend. Speak, little frightened 
one. Ah ! thou art no stronger now than when 
thou didst start and tremble so, if I did but 
look upon thee in the Conservatoire. Thou 
foolish child !” 

But all the while Notturino kept his black, 
gleaming eyes fixed upon her, and her hands 
locked in his. 

“Madame did send for me,” Gretchen be- 
gan, very faintly, “after that I had sung in 
the Domkirche at the Festival; and she 
praised me much, and bade me that I should 
come to her again in the evening. And she 
took me with her to the concert, after that she 
had said she would speak for me to her friends, 
and I was there to see her again. And I did 
wait, but she forgot, and I must come away 
alone. But doubtless it must be that I see her 
again, or what shall I do ?” 

“What, indeed ?” said Notturino, consider- 
ing within himself how he might possibly turn 
madame’s forgetfulness to his own profit, or at 
any rate increase his own power over Gretchen 
by persuading her that she was forgotten. 

“And dost thou think, poor child, that 
madame has room in her thoughts for such as 
thee ? Thy voice pleased her, and she smiled 
upon thee. To-morrow she will listen and 
smile elsewhere.” 

“But, signor, she promised that she would 
name me to her friends.” 

“ She has named thee to me, Gretchen, and 
I have come. See how I found thee.” 

And Notturino drew from his pocket the 
blue ribbon. 

It seemed to her like a gleam of sunshine in 
the darkness ; a little window through which 
she looked out to fresh air and freedom. If 
she might but have it again, to remind her of 
Roger Monkeston and the old life which had 
gone so far away now. 

“Ah, signor, that is mine! Let me that I 
have it again,” she said, once more trying to 
draw her hands away. 

“Take it.” And he wound it carelessly 
round her neck, then prisoned her hands 
again. “I have found thee instead, which is 
better. I shall not need it now. And if ma- 
dame forgets thee, and thou hast nothing more 
to hope from her, thou shalt come with me, 
and I will make of thee a great singer. Is 
not that as thou wouldst have it, Gretchen ?” 

“I would live my life,” said the girl, simply. 
“And that I sing is to me as my life.” 

“And thou wilt not fear the toil and the 
trouble, and that thou go far from thy friends ?” 

“I fear nothing but that I should do wrong. 
And now it seems to me that I know not any 
thing.” 

“ Thou needst not, child ; for I know it all. 
Thou hast but to obey ; it is what thou art made 
for. And one day all the world shall hear thee.” 


Gretchen’s eyes sparkled. 

“And you will make it for me, then, that I 
belong to the great peoples ?” 

“ Truly, my child, even as madame herself.” 

“And my mother will no longer say to me, 
It is not well. Ach ! meine Mutter, do you 
hear? I shall find my place there, where you 
looked not for me to come. And then, sign- 
or — ” 

“We will talk of ‘then’ when it comes. 
Tell me now why you are here alone ? Where 
is the good Frau Bratchet, who w'ashes and 
prays always? Methinks if her prayers made 
her very wise she would not leave thee, littlo 
singing-bird, in thy cage with the door un- 
locked.” t 

“The Frau Bratchet has gone away, signor, 
to one who is ill, and it may be she will not 
soon return ; and I am to go to the Domkirche 
this afternoon, that I sing in the chorus, and it 
may be madame will remember, and will send 
for me again.” 

“Always madame, child — as if none else 
could serve thee ! Thou needst not trouble 
thy little head — I tell thee thou hast another 
friendjiow. Can I not, then, if I will, do 
more for thee than this madame who has once 
smiled upon thee ? I will myself take thee to 
Naples, and there thou shalt learn thy art, and 
become as one of us.” 

Gretchen looked up again, with that reserve 
of doubt behind the light in her clear eyes. 

“And I will ask my mother, signor, that 
she give me her blessing befoie I go. That> 
will be for me my gate through which I in 
to the great peoples.” 

“That shall be all right, child. Vex not 
thy little head about it. And so you live here 
all alone with the Frau Bratchet?” 

“Yes, signor.” The girl spoke slowly and 
quietly. If her eyes wandered away for a mo- 
ment, they came back, even if unwillingly, to 
the dark face which was holding her in its 
power. “My mother made it for me that I 
should be a governess of the nursery to a rich 
English milady ; but I liked it not, for no one 
loved me — it was not home for me; and I 
heard that one of my own countrymen worked 
by the Herr Arncliffe here, and I came, and 
he gave to me that I should be one of the lac- 
quering girls. And a woman from Naples was 
good to me, so that I lived with her ; but endlich 
she thought I would be safer with the Frau 
Bratchet. She did sometimes work to help 
the Frau Bratchet, and she knew that she Avas 
very good. So here am I. But still some- 
times I do see meine Freundinn Patch, and we 
sing together.” 

“Ha! So this Avoman from Naples does 
sing?” 

“«7a ivohl. Once she says she did always 
sing, and now she is rastlos Avhen there is mu- 
sic here. She Avanders about, and she is not 
content.” 

“And you call her Patch ?” 

“ Yes ; but that is not for her the whole 


* 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


83 


l name. I know not the rest ; but there is 
I more. And she sings as I have heard them 
it sing in the Conservatoire at Stuttgart, not as 
!| they do sing here. Once she thought to have 
ij been one of us, but it did not come so.” 

“And this woman — you see her often?” 

“Yes,” said Gretchen. “Only that at the 
r Festival she loves not to work. It is better 
i to her that she waits, and sometimes hears 
j the music. There were here some baskets of 
clothes that she should take home ; and the 
Frau Bratchet told me how I should say it to 
her where she should take them, and she has 
gone.” 

Notturino bit his lips and bent his brows. 
Then, after a little pause, he said, carelessly, 

“Well, Gretchen, there is not much time to 
I lose. There are yet but two days of the Fes- 
i tival, and I can not stay to the end. It is bet- 
I ter that you should be at the hotel with ma- 
I dame, and then she can say to you what she 
I wishes. You shall come with me now. Rut 
I together some of your things, and I will take 
I you.” 

“But — ” and Gretchen looked troubled, yet 
I she began to do as the signor bade her — “ the 
I Frau Bratchet ? She does know nothing. Must 
I it not be that I go and tell her ?” 

“I will make all that right. Your wish is 
I that you shall be a singer. Come, then, with 
I me. You know it, Gretchen ; you can not 
stay.” 

Meekly Gretchen went away, put up her lit- 
. ^iVundle, and her roll of music. The blue 
: riboon she folded up in her pouch with ma- 
dame’s note. She felt as if in a dream — she 
could see nothing clearly. Only a force was 
upon her that she must obey. Then the signor 
< called a cab, and they both went to the “ Crux- 
borough Arms,” where the room next to ma- 
dame's was prepared for her ; and the waiter 
i received orders to admit no one to the Fraulein 
j Muller’s presence without first informing Ma- 
[ dame Fortebracchio. 

For, as Notturino said to the prima donna , 

i “ These friends whom I love ” might prove 
troublesome, and rob the world of a great 

j! singer, which would be a thousand pities. 

| Madame quite agreed with him ; and as the 
girl seemed scarcely to know her own mind, it 

ii was kind to help her to a decision, especially 
! a decision which must issue for her in such a 

splendid future. But in his heart the signor 
| mistrusted that Italian woman, who once did 
always sing, and now was very poor. 

. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

After leaving Gretchen safely enough, as 
she thought, in Mrs. Bratchet’s kitchen, Patch 
went with her basket to the “ Cruxborough 
Arms,” but could there pick up nothing from 
the waiter, except that every body was in bed. 
At least, so he thought ; for no breakfast bad 


been ordered yet in the saloon which was oc- 
cupied by the Festival party. He thought 
most likely the arrangements would be like 
those of the day before, when they all break- 
fasted in their own rooms, and only appeared 
when it was nearly time to go to the cathedral. 

As the man saw that Patch was quite will- 
ing to loiter about, he volunteered a little fur- 
ther information. From what he could make 
out, he thought madame the prima donna and 
one or two of her party were going on, after 
the Festival, to a town farther north ; and the 
Signor Notturino, who was only engaged for 
part of the performances, would return to 
London that night or early next morning. At 
least, that was what he had gathered from the 
maids and valets. But the young woman in 
the queer-looking foreign dress had certainly 
not been sent for again ; or, if sent for, she 
had not come to his knowledge. 

Patch took up her empty basket, and the 
money for the clothes, and went away with 
rather a lightened heart. In Notturino’s ab- 
sence and in madame’s forgetfulness there was 
safety for Gretchen ; in no other way. She 
went to Mrs. Balmain’s, was paid there, too, 
and then trudged with the remainder of her 
load to Mrs. Ballinger’s grand new house on 
the Portman Road. 

Invitations had been issued for a grand lunch- 
eon there this morning, from which the guests 
were to go to the Festival. Ladies in the most 
sumptuous of morning costumes were prome- 
nading the conservatories, or chatting in the 
deep, crimson-curtained bay-windows. Regi- 
nald Ballinger, for whom his father had just 
bought a commission in the Lancers, was flirt- 
ing with Captain Deveron’s daughter in the lit- 
tle octagon off the drawing-room. His father 
thought the young people would most likely 
make a match of it before long. Not much 
money on the Deveron side, but capital inter- 
est in the army, and good old family, too, which 
would help to build up the Ballinger position in 
Cruxborough. Matilda, in the loveliest em- 
broidered cashmere that Madame Parasuti could 
turn out, was receiving Mr. Armstrong’s devo- 
tion among the rock-work in the conservatory. 
Mr. Ballinger wished those young people would 
make a match of it, too, for this perpetual lunch- 
eon, dinner, and party giving was beginning to 
be rather expensive ; and if some definite agree- 
ment was not entered into before long, he in- 
tended to throw down his cards, and declare 
the game at an end. 

But Mrs. Ballinger counseled perseverance. 
She thought this Festival would decide the 
matter. She was sure Mr. Armstrong enjoyed 
nothing so much as his social opportunities at 
their house, only he was not a demonstrative 
man, nor one who made up his mind very quick- 
ly about any thing. If he had not really some- 
thing serious in view, why should he have put 
off until evening an important journey to Lon- 
don in order that he might accompany dear 
Matilda to the oratorio, and see her safely home 


84 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


again ? If that did not look like coming to an 
understanding, she should like Mr. Ballinger to 
tell her what did. At any rate, it was easy to 
see what Mrs. Balmain thought about it, walk- 
ing up and down there with Captain Deveron, 
and eying the two young people as if they had 
been stealing something. For every one knew 
how anxious Mrs. Balmain had been to get Mr. 
Armstrong fixed down in her own family, and 
how she had looked him up and hunted him 
out, and used the meanest arts to secure him 
for one of her own daughters. Indeed, if it 
was only to spite Mrs. Balmain, Mrs. Ballinger 
meant to leave no stone unturned in the way 
of Matilda’s settlement at Wastewood. And 
if an extra hundred or two in luncheons and 
dinners could do it, it should be done. 

And Mrs. Ballinger sailed supremely away 
to entertain her guests, dear Mrs. Balmain 
among the number. 

But Patch took little heed of all the grand- 
eur. She left her starch things, got the money 
for them, and then went away, even declining 
the house-maid’s invitation to go through the 
back passage and peep through a sliding-door 
into the dining-room, where the luncheon was 
laid out. 

“Such a sight for flowers and cold meats 
and made-up dishes as never you seed in all 
your life, and every thing from a French cook ; 
as when the missis does it she likes it proper, 
don’t she, though ? It’s a rare thing is plenty 
of money for them as knows what’s what. And 
the fancy sweets from London, so as you never 
set eyes on their match. The missis has been 
in a fine takin’ fear every thing shouldn’t go 
off right.” 

Patch’s only reply was an expressive shrug 
of her shoulders. Then she took up her emp- 
ty baskets, and came to Mrs. Bratchet’s room 
to leave them there. She loitered on the road, 
paused for a few moments at the “Cruxbor- 
ough Arms,” and walked leisurely round the 
Minster Close, for the chance of seeing Signor 
Notturino, so that it wanted but half an hour 
of the time for the oratorio to begin when she 
reached the little room in the college yard. 
Therefore she was not surprised to find it emp- 
ty. The chorus singers were always expected 
to be early in their places. Gretchen would be 
in hers, no doubt. 

“If I can but see her afterward, I will tell 
her all,” muttered Patch to herself, as, having 
glanced round the room, and called up the nar- 
row stair to be sure that the girl was indeed 
gone, she turned away to keep her second 
watch at the Chapter House door. “She will 
then know it were better she staid quietly 
here.” 

And Patch slipped behind the shadow of 
the gray old portals, wrapping her faded shawl 
tightly round her, for the wind blew keenly 
across the Close now, and black clouds were be- 
ginning to rise in the west. 

This time her waiting was not in vain. The 
first carriage that drove up was from the “ Crux- 


borough Arms.” Notturino got out first ; after 
him came Madame Fortebracchio, gorgeous as 
some sunset-tinted tropica] flower, and then — 
ha ! was that indeed the little German peasant 
girl in her buckled shoes and woolen petticoat ? 
were those Gretchen’s hands that the signor 
held in his so long as he lifted her out of the 
carriage ? were those Gretchen’s eyes — blue, 
wondering, frightened eyes — which seemed as 
if they could not turn themselves away from j 
his face ? 

Patch half sprang forward, then crouched 
back again behind the shadow of the old door- 
way, and ground her teeth as Notturino, still j 
keeping the young girl close to him, went up 
the steps. She could have flown at him and 
clutched him, strong as he was, in those long, * ' 
lean fingers of hers — clutched him with so 
tight a grip that no voice should have been 
left for grand “Messiah ” solos any more: But 
her time was not yet come. She must wait, ; 
watch, be patient. 

So, then, it was as she thought ! This was 
the signor of whom the simple child had spoken ? 
This was why her good, honest mother, doubt- 
ing much, and sad at heart, had left herself 
lonely there in the little cottage at Stuttgart, 
that Gretchen might be safe in England — safe 
away from those black, glittering eyes and those 
luring speeches, and fine, flattering promises. 

And now he had found her again. He was 
the “friend” to whom madame, knowing him 
not at all, would speak of this little favorite^,, 
of hers, that she might perhaps go w&h-f ' 4 " > 
and be made a great singer. Choice friend, 
indeed! beautiful patron for crystal- hearted 
Gretchen ! fair prospect, to be given over to 
a companionship which could bring her only 
evil ! 

Patch hissed an Italian curse at the signor 
as he disappeared with his charge behind the 
crimson curtains which were hung across the 
vestibule. Gretchen had gone through into \\ 
the light and the glory and the splendor. She 
stood out alone in the cold. No merry sun- 
shine smiled any more upon Cruxborough Fes- 
tival, but the black clouds kept seething up 
from the west, and a low, moaning wind crept 
through the almost leafless elm -trees in the 
Close, and the bells seemed to have lost their 
music : they smote, with sharp, discordant 
clangor, on the air, as though crying out against 
the wrong and injustice which hid as yet so 
safely behind this Festival pomp. 

Patch waited there. The music began to 
peal out. She could hear plainly enough the 
grand chorus-bursts and the fainter harmony 1 
of the chorales ; and from time to time there 
was a pause, during which the solo-singers, 
whose voices could not reach her where she 
stood, were telling forth their sweet, melodious 
story — Notturino, perhaps, storming so splen- 
didly about “the people that walked in dark- 
ness.” Ha ! she knew well enough what it was 
to walk in darkness — darkness of his making, 
too. But what of the great light ? She had 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


85 


seen none yet — never could sec it now. And 
Gretchen, too, if no strong hand stayed her, was 
going into that darkness — ay, going straight 
into it, from all the glow and glory of that 
grand old cathedral. Her face was toward it 
now. It came to meet her as surely as those 
great black clouds were marching from the 
west. Who should reach out and clutch the 
child back again? Who should give her, if 
not fame and the world’s smile, at least the 
quiet, innocent heart which was better than 
they ? 

“I will,” said the hollow-faced woman to 
herself, as she crouched in the shadow of the 
Chapter House door. And then came a glo- 
rious burst of song. They were singing the 
chorus, “For unto us a child is born.” Patch 
felt the music go quivering through her, but 
not with any sweet message of joy and glad- 
ness ; rather it was as a blast of battle trump- 
ets, telling her to go out into the stormy strife, 
and do her* work there. And the black clouds 
came slowly creeping up all the time. 

What, then, should she do ? Go to madame, 
and tell her all ? Nay, but who would listen to 
so wild a story ! Go to the hotel, ask for Signor 
Notturino, boldly defy him there ? That could 
bring little good. There were plenty of police- 
men about, who for a fee would be ready enough 
to hustle her out into the streets for the half- 
mad woman that Cruxborough took her to be. 
And then orders would be given that she should 
not be admitted again, and all would go as the 
. 'em*'* wished it. A great darkness, truly! 
She could but watch and wait ; be ready when 
opportunity offered ; keep Gretchen within 
reach, if possible, and trust elsewhere for the 
rest. 

By-and-by the doors were flung open. The 
bells rang bravely and merrily out upon the 
gathering night. Carriages began to gather 
up again to the Chapter House door, the prima 
donnas first of all. A servant got down with 
my lady’s wraps and rugs, and waited before 
the curtain. Soon madame came out with 
little Gretchen and Notturino. So the peas- 
ant girl had got among the great peoples at 
last, and pure and fair as a pearl she showed 
upon the glow of their many-colored splendor. 
A pearl after Notturino’s own heart, one might 
say, thought Patch, as, with clenched teeth and 
knitted brows, she watched him fold the girl’s 
cloak round her, lightly touch with his great 
strong hands the golden curls upon her fore- 
head, lead her away to the carriage, and place 
her warmly and comfortably there, after ma- 
dame, with not quite so much attention from 
him, had been deposited. He did not get in 
himself, but, taking a fur-lined cloak from the 
servant, went back into the Minster. 

A wild desire came over Patch to go after 
him. The dull, brooding instinct of revenge, 
which had been smouldering within her for 
many and many a year, was quickened into 
flame by seeing the man whom once she loved, 
and whom now she hated with a hatred as 


strong as the despised love, offering to another 
what of right belonged to herself. To gratify 
that passion of hate, to be repaid in some sort 
for the wrong he had done her, to have the 
fierce delight of dashing from his false lips a 
cup sparkling so fairly and so daintily filled, 
made her forget every thing else. She re- 
membered no more the wisdom of patient wait- 
ing, what might be lost by angry haste, what 
might be won by slow watching. She only 
thought of defying the man who had crushed 
her own life, of feeding her own long pent-up 
anger on the sight of his confusion and defeat. 
That one quick glance into his face, bent with 
looks of love upon another than herself, had 
brought back all the bitter past, roused the 
evil spirit within her, and now it would have its 
way. 

Notturino had disappeared again behind the 
crimson curtain. There was no admission for 
a vagabond-looking woman like Patch by that 
entrance — too many fine ladies in satin and 
feathers were passing to and fro. She ran 
round to a little side door, which was only 
used by the scavengers, and 'went in unobserved 
by any one. Streams of people were throng- 
ing the nave and south transept, but the north 
aisle, into which that little side door led her, 
was almost empty ; unlighted, too, for there 
was nothing of interest in it, and it was not re- 
quired for any part of the Festival arrange- 
ments. Only one solitary stranger paced 
about ; that stranger was Notturino. He stop- 
ped before a curious old brass of the fifteenth 
century, whereon was an inscription to the 
memory of Dame Benice Asgard, who died 
greatly loved and lamented, and whose virtues 
were thus perpetuated by her sorrowing hus- 
band. Then followed a full description of the 
virtues, wound up by an intimation that those 
who wished to copy her bright example, might 
find a further record of the same in her charit- 
able bequests, as set forth upon a tablet in the 
south aisle of the cathedral. 

Patch came quietly up behind the cloaked 
figure, which was bending over the quaint old 
brass. Her face was very white, and there was 
the tremor of intense passion in her low voice, 
as she said, 

“A touching inscription, signor. Would it 
hot please you much that you might so remem- 
ber me, and in no other way ? In no other way, 
most noble signor!” 

And she made a mock courtesy to him. 

Notturino turned. No need to look into 
the face ; he knew the voice well enough. Not 
the first time, this, that the hollow-eyed Italian 
woman had stood between him and what he 
would fain have seized for himself. It was no 
use making a scene, though, there and then — no 
use trampling on the poor weak creature whose 
sting no foot of his could trample out. 

“ You hag ! you viper !” was all he said. 

“Thank you!” And Patch courtesied 
again. “That is a pretty greeting for a wife. 
You did not always speak so to me; not so 


86 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


when you bade me away from my flower-bas- 
kets — ha! you remember it well — and made 
me leave all for you ! Not so you speak to 
this fair little Gretchen, of whom you would 
make a great singer, forsooth ; and she has 
no good mother here to say to her, ‘ Stay, thou 
foolish child !’ But I will be to her a mother, 
and I will have my revenge that you fail. Al- 
ways it is my revenge that you fail !” 

Notturino glared at her. They could both 
have killed each other, only that the time and 
the place did not serve. So he shrugged his 
shoulders and sneered. 

“Very bravely spoken! A clever woman, 
indeed ! But, poor Patchuoli, I think you have 
fallen too low to stand any longer between me 
and mine. You have thwarted me in the past. 
It is my turn now ! ” 

And the signor turned carelessly away. 
Patch followed him, and clutched his arm. 

“You shall listen to me. You shall know 
that I do hate you !” 

“ Oh, thank you, I know that perfectly ! 
Not the least need for either of us to trouble 
ourselves about it. }f you would have the great 
kindness to take that dirty hand of yours off 
my cloak.” 

Patch drew herself up, stepping proudly 
back. 

“ Cloaks may bear a speck if souls may be 
kept clean. Will you, then, that I tell her 
all?” 

“Tell her what you will. We shall see 
what you can do, poor wretch ! Have I, then, 
lived so long in the world that a mad woman 
can give me checkmate ? Say what you can— 
I say you lie. We shall know, then, who is 
the strongest. Off, you vagrant ! Here !” 

And Notturino beckoned to a policeman 
who was sauntering about. 

“ I think this woman has no business in the 
cathedral. Turn her out — she is begging.” 

The policeman looked at her. Lean, jaded, 
disreputable, with the air of a penny lodging- 
house about her, if nothing worse. Skulked 
in on the sly, no doubt, to pick pockets, only 
she might have done it better in the south 
aisle, where the people were crowding so. 
What a nuisance these tramps were, thrusting 
themselves in wherever a penny might be beg- 
ged or stolen ! Notturino, too, slipping half a 
crown into his hand as Patch was beginning to 
defend herself, made the case wonderfully clear. 

“ Come along, mum ; we don’t allow no such 
goings on in this ’ere sacred edifice. You 
ought to be ashamed of yourself, insulting a 
respectable party. If you don’t clear out, I’ll 
have you took to the station and searched. 
It’s people’s pockets you’re after, I warrant, 
you varmint.” 

Patch turned and went quietly away. If 
the man took her to the station, and a search 
in her pockets brought to light the fifteen shil- 
lings paid her at the three different houses to 
which she had carried clean linen that day, 
who would believe her when she told how the 


money came there? She would be locked up 
all night, and perhaps the next day, until in- 
quiry had been made ; and in that time what 
ill might not have been wrought! Without 
even another glance at the signor, who was 
strolling round among the monuments, she fol- 
lowed the policeman, who, holding her by the 
arm, led her to the little scavenger’s door, and 
put her out there into the cold and the dark. 
Nothing, it seemed, for Patch now but cold and 
dark, right on to the end. 

She sat down on the steps outside. The 
bells Avere ringing so loudly and merrily! 
There Avas a grand dinner-party at the Dean- 
ery, another at the Bishop’s palace, Avhere the 
Countess of Cruxborough, Lord St. Maud, and 
half a dozen other notabilities Avere staying for 
the Festival. In one of the upper AvindoAvs of 
the little house under the east front a light 
burned faintly. Patch clasped her hands 
round her knees and rocked to and fro. No 
one heeded her; she Avas safe enough there. • 
She might think and think and think, and if 
any such thinking could profit Gretchen, petted 
noAv and caressed by madame in the splendor 
of that grand saloon at the “ Cruxborough 
Arms,” so much the better. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Signor Notturino did not spend very much 
more time examining those curious old brassy 
in the north transept of the cathedral. That' 
ugly intemeAv Avith Patch had shoAved him that 
the sooner he and Gretchen Avere safely aAA'ay 
the better. Although her story, eA r en if she 
found opportunity to tell it, Avould only be list- 
ened to by most people as the idle vagary of 
a mad woman, still it might make an honest, 
straightfonvard girl like Gretchen hesitate, 
doubt, perhaps decide at last to stay at home 
among “ these friends Avhom I love.” There- 
fore he must talk madame over, convince her 
that it AA'ould be better for the girl to go to 
London Avith him at once, that A f ery evening, in- 
stead of Avaiting for some Aveeks until the pro- 
vincial tour Avas over, by A\ r hich time she Avould 
very likely have been persuaded by her friends 
not to go at all. 

Patch had not been rocking herself to and 
fro upon the steps outside for ten minutes be- 
fore the signor Avas back at his hotel. Having 
ascertained that Gretchen Avas with madame in 
the saloon, and having given strict orders that 
any one who might come to inquire for her 
Avas to be sent to him, he shut himself up in 
his OAvn room, and thought over his plans. 

He had nearly arranged them Avhen the 
Avaiter came to say that some one asked for 
Fraulein Muller. 

“Who is it?” said the signor, carelessly. 

“A man, sir — a person, I think, sir.” 

“ Bid him come here, then ; and bring me 
up a time-table.” 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


“Any one but that lean-faced Neapolitan,” 
muttered the signor, as he pushed aside some 
papers. “If I could light on that policeman 
again, I would hire him to stay about the place 
to be ready for her. Who seeks our little lady 
next, I wonder?” 

It was Roger Monkeston. That had been 
a hard day for him, full of the waiting anxiety 
which tries a man more than work. Mrs. 
Monkeston was sufficiently recovered in the 
morning for him to go as usual to Mr. Arn- 
cliffe’s private office, where most of his time 
was spent now in making calculations connect- 
ed with the great telescope ; but there had 
been no oratorio for him in the afternoon. 
The three hours which could be spared for it 
he had spent in relieving Jean from her at- 
tendance in their mother’s room. Now she 
was ready to take her place again, and there 
was nothing more for him to do. 

He wondered Gretchen never came. She 
knew that they much needed the help she 
might have given. Mrs. Bratchet said she 
was tired, tired and disappointed too, on ac- 
count of madame not having sent for her 
again ; but that need not have kept her away 
from them at such a time as this. Perhaps 
she did not like to come because of the last 
words he had spoken to her the night before. 
She had not said him nay, but that very reserve 
of hope, sweet as it was to him, raised a barrier 
between them which she could not be the first 
to overpass. It had never been Gretchen’s 
way to seek him out; she had always waited 
to be sought. Even in her brightest, most 
joyous moods, there was always a fine, subtle 
veil around her — a sort of halo of maiden re- 
straint, which set her apart from other girls 
of her class. Now, by his own words, he had 
forced her to retire still farther within herself. 
Scarcely now could she come unbidden to that 
little room again, even to help and comfort. 

Roger would go himself, and bid her there. 
He knew she would come if Jean sent for her 
— Jean, whom she loved so much, who had 
been so good to her. Perhaps she would come 
to them before the evening concert, perhaps 
not go there at all, but stay with them instead. 
They would any of them have done as much 
for her if she had needed it. Ah ! what was 
there that he would not have put away from 
him, what pleasure, what brightness, to have 
helped her, had her least word or look asked it 
of him ? And would she do nothing now for 
them ? 

He told Jean. She sent a message by him ; 
for she, too, wondered that Gretchen never 
came. After the oratorio was over, he went to 
Mrs. Bratchet’s room in the college yard ; it 
was locked, empty, no light in the window. 
Then he thought that most probably, after the 
performance, Madame Fortebracchio had sent 
for her again, and if so she would be at the 
hotel. It was no use waiting for her return. 
She might go with madame to the evening con- 
cert, and then it would be too late to see her at 


87 

all. He had better go boldly to the hotel and 
ask for her. 

Which he did, and, as we have seen, was 
bidden, not to her presence, but to the signor’s. 

Notturino looked keenly at him. Who should 
this tall, stalwart young fellow be, with head 
held so erect, and such bold, fearless glance ? 
No gentleman. The signor knew the cut of a 
gentleman’s coat too well for that, the fine, well- 
bred ring of a gentleman’s voice, the color of a 
gentleman’s hands ; also the way in which a 
gentleman entered a room, or disposed of his 
hat when he was there. Some one of her own 
rank, evidently — perhaps one of the “friends” 
of whom madame had said it was such a thou- 
sand pities she should have any, since they kept 
her back from a splendid future in the great 
world of song. 

Notturino bowed inquiringly. 

“I am Roger Monkeston. I have brought 
a message from my sister to Gretchen Muller.” 

“I am sorry the Fiaulein Muller can not be 
seen at present,” said the signor, looking at 
him with that distant courtesy of recognition 
which is only due all the world over from a 
gentleman to a person. “ She is engaged with 
Madame Fortebracchio. I shall be glad to 
give a message for you when she is at liberty.” 

“Will you say to her, then, that my mother 
is ill, and wishes to see her? We thought she 
would have come to us before. At least, my 
sister thought so.” 

“ That your mother is ill, and wishes to see 
her. Certainly. I did not quite catch your 
name. Perhaps you would be good enough to 
leave your card.” 

“I have no cards,” said Roger, honestly 
enough, and totally unconscious of the great 
gulf which this circumstance placed between 
himself and such a social gem as the Signor 
Notturino. “ If I could see Gretchen Muller 
she would understand. I can wait until Ma- 
dame Fortebracchio has done with her.” 

“ There is not the slightest need for that. I 
do not generally give myself so much trouble,” 
said the signor, after a little pause; “but as 
you seem to be in haste, I will take the mes- 
sage to her myself. That your mother is ill, and 
wishes to see her. I believe that is all. And 
perhaps you will write your name upon this slip 
of paper. I may forget it again.” 

How coldly his voice sounded ! But the words 
would be warm to Gretchen’s heart, and would 
surely bring her soon. Roger wrote his name, 
gave it to the signor, and repeated the message, 
adding, 

“Will you tell her we want her very much 
to come ? My sister needs her help. She can 
do us much good.” 

“If I could but see her, even for a moment,” 
thought Roger, as the signor went away. But, 
judging others by himself, he waited, full of 
patient hope. 

After a suitable interval, during which Not- 
turino had been quietly walking up and down 
one of the corridors, twisting Roger’s bit of pa- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


88 

per in his fingers, he returned. It had not 
taken much time for him to concoct an answer 
which would serve all his purposes. 

“ The Fraulein Gretchen Muller regrets much 
that Mrs. Monkeston is ill. When she is dis- 
engaged from madame she will endeavor to 
see you. Possibly not until to-morrow, as she 
will remain to-night at the hotel with madame. 
That is all. She can not come.” 

“Is that all?” said Roger, with a great chill 
— not the chill of suspicion, but of pride — at his 
heart. Was this all that Gretchen had done 
by “speaking with herself” since last night? 
Could she so coldly pass by in their need those 
who had not coldly dealt with her, even when 
her need of their kindness was not so great ? 

Notturino looked sorry. 

“That is all. You will excuse the Fraulein 
if she is a little weary to-night. She finds it 
needful for herself that she should rest. I 
have no doubt to-morrow morning, if you call, 
you will receive quite a different message. It 
would be useless to detain you longer now.” 

Roger went away. And now his head was 
very proudly lifted, and his step was very firm, 
and there was no longer any patient hope with- 
in him, but only the strong, resolute courage 
of the man who takes his life back again into 
his own hands, and will rule it for himself, not 
for the woman he has loved. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Notturino went back to the saloon. Gret- 
chen, spent with fatigue and excitement, but 
still more with that strong, invisible power 
which was girding itself so closely round her, 
lay on the sofa, her eyes shut, her face very 
pale. She could no longer think, she could no 
longer act ; she could only rest, while her very 
life seemed drifting away from her. 

Madame, sitting on a brocaded lounge, 
shielded her face from the fire with an ivory 
fan, from time to time looking kindly upon the 
little one. For she liked the girl, and she had 
faith in a great future for her, if only she would 
leave this dull old Cruxborough, where no tal- 
ent could ever rise, and even genius scarce do 
more than helplessly flap its wings in the stu- 
pid, heavy air. Ah, if she were only in Na- 
ples ! But they would accomplish all that. 

“Madame, I have made my plans,” said 
Notturino, in Italian, as he seated himself near 
her. “I have been considering your wishes 
for Gretchen Muller. It is quite true that she 
would enter our profession ?” 

“ True, signor ? Does not the child herself 
say that music is to her as her life ? She only 
waits that one should open the door for her. 
There is the Conservatoire at Naples — that is 
the door. When I come back from those 
places I will pass through here again, and then 
I can take her with me to London, and after- 
ward we will arrange all.” 


“That is not good,” said the signor. “I 
have thought of it better. The child is drawn 
hither and thither — she knows not what she 
would.” 

“That is, indeed, true. Ask her will she be 
one of us, and her face lights up ; say to her 
‘Come,’ and her tears do fall. What, then, 
can one do?” 

“Decide for her. If you leave her here un- 
til you return, these friends of whom you speak 
— and I have had one of them here to-night 
after her, a low fellow, of the mechanic sort — 
will seize upon her again, and persuade her 
that it is her duty to remain here. She will 
say yes, and there will be an end. I go to 
London in an hour from this time. She shall 
go with me. Give me a letter for your serv- 
ants that they make every thing comfortable 
for her, and take care of her as fitting until 
your return. Then she shall begin her musical 
education until such time as she can be sent to 
Naples.” 

“That is very good,” said madame, “but 
too quick. Why, she can not even see these 
people of hers again ; and we must allow that 
she has some sort of affection for them. Can 
you not wait until to-morrow ?” 

The signor thought of Patch, the daring hate 
of the woman, and all it might do Dr him if 
he lingered near her. 

“ Do I ever wait when once I have said I 
will go ? I go to-night, and Gretchen Muller 
goes with me. These people of whom you 
speak will do her no good; they are rude and 
coarse. I have already seen another besidd 
the man who came. If they have any de- 
mands upon her — if she owes them any thing 
for board and lodging — they can see you before 
you go, and you will satisfy them.” 

“It is quick,” said madame, thoughtfully ; 
“ but there is no other way. And I will make 
all pleasant for her when I come. She shall 
not need to regret.” 

Madame went to the sofa and kissed Gret- 
chen, who woke with a start of fear. 

“Yes, madame, I am quite ready,” she said, 
as she saw the splendid figure bending over 
her. “ I do know mv part in the chorus. Ah ! 
but I did think I would much longer have rest- 
ed. Is it that we must now go ?” 

“ It is, little one,” said madame, half-sadly ; 
“but not to the concert. You must take a 
longer journey than that to-night. The signor 
has decided for you that you go with him to 
London. It will not be ■well that you wait for 
me ; but I shall come to you soon, and you shall 
be very happy.” 

“ That I go to London, and with the signor, 
and so soon!” said Gretchen, dreamily. But 
indeed, since she arose that morning, all life 
had been like a dream, and nothing seemed 
strange to her any more. All her life lay far 
away from her ; it was an effort to remember 
it. Things that had happened only yesterday 
showed in a dim light, as of years and years 
ago. And for the future, that had no reality 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


89 


cither. Some one there would lead her by the 
hand forth into that land of music which she 
felt was her home ; but of the way she knew 
not — she could only go as she was led. 

She passed her hand over her forehead. It 
caught in the blue ribbon which fastened her 
hair. That blue ribbon — who had given it to 
her ? The Herr Monkeston, and he had spoken 
to her last night, only it seemed much longer 
since than that, and the words were now like 
a sweet half-forgotten tune. And then came 
back to her what the Frau Bratchet had said 
in the morning, that madame with the good, 
grave face was ill, and they wanted some one to 
help them, and she would have gone, only every 
thing changed after that. 

“Must it be, then, that I go so soon, ma- 
dame ?” she said, with a wondering, wistful look 
upon her face, yet rising with meek obedience, 
as though ready, there and then, for any thing 
they told her to do; “and that I give to none 
of my friends my farewell ? Ah ! then that is 
not good. Can I not for one moment go to 
them and tell them it is not that I forget ? For 
madame is ill — my other madame, who has been 
so good to me ; and the Fraulein Monkeston 
will wonder that I do not come, and she will 
say Gretchen remembers not. Ah, if I could 
only see them, then I could be well content ; 
but that they sav of me, ‘ She forgets ’ — how 
shall I bear it?” 

Notturino came forward, twisting in his fin- 
gers the bit of paper on which Roger Monk- 
eston had written his name. All this under- 
hand work was rather tiresome, but still, when 
one had begun a thing, one must finish it. Gret- 
chen must go away at once, before more mes- 
sages and inquiries complicated his movements. 
Besides, too, the change would really be for her 
good. 

“There is no time for farewells,” he said. 
“Your friends know you are here. If they 
wished it so much they might come and see 
you.” 

“Do they, then, know?” said Gretchen, ea- 
gerly. 

“Yes. Some one went to this Frau Brat- 
chet of whom you speak to tell her you are here. 
People do not care so much, little one, as you 
think. The world will still go on here without 
you, and then Madame Fortebracchio will make 
all right for you. She will be here some days 
longer.” 

“Yes,” said madame, “until past Sunday. 
I will send to the Frau Bratchet to-morrow 
morning, and tell her every thing ; and, if she 
loves you so much, the good woman will be 
glad that you are happy. And as for the oth- 
er friends ” — for the kind-hearted lady saw that 
Gretchen’s lip was still trembling with suppress- 
ed emotion — “I will tell them too, and they 
shall know how sorry you are to go away. Do 
not fear, child, that I will let you seem ungrate- 
ful to any one. Or stay — ” 

And madame looked at her watch. Nottu- 
rino bent his brows and shook his head, but she 


took no notice. Had she not once been a girl 
herself, and did she not know what it meant to 
leave home and friends ? 

“I think there is time. You shall send a 
little note, and ask them to come. If you can 
but see them for a moment, it will make you 
quite happy. I will not have you that you go 
aw r ay with the tears in your eyes. Notturino, 
you will see that it is sent immediately, will you 
not?” 

Notturino bowed. Of course, he was at ma- 
dame’s service. 

“That is good,” said Gretchen, brightening 
up, as madame brought what she needed from 
a dainty port- folio. “Now they will say no 
more that I forget. Whom shall I, then, ask ? 

It must be that the Fraulein Jean will not leave 
her mother w r ho is ill. But the good Herr 
Monkeston w ill come. Only — ” 

“You have no time for ‘ only,’ child. If 
you want him to come, tell him so,” said Nottu- 
rino, with a quiet smile. And he watched a 
flush come and go upon Gretchen’s cheeks. 
Let her ask whom she would to come and bid 
her farewell, what difference would it ever 
make ? 

This w r as her letter. The writing of it took 
away some of the sadness which had pressed so 
heavily upon her heart : 

“It has come to me^vhat I so much longed 
for ; but I have pain that I leave you, my friends. 
The signor wills that I go w r ith him to London 
to-night, and he will open for me the ,w r ay to 
my new life. Are you not, then, glad- for me ? 
Some day I shall come back to you. It is to 
me sad that I can not come to you, but ma- 
dame says I may ask that the Herr Monkeston 
will, of his kindness, come to me for one mo- 
ment, that I may make to him, and to you all, 
my farewell. Alas ! my Fraulein Jean, that I 
see you no more, and madame who is ill. But 
I have not made it so. I do keep you always 
in my heart. Do let it be that I may see your 
brother, and then I shall learn of you. Ah 
me, but I am not happy when I think that I 
leave you ! Remember Gretchen always. 
Lebewohl ’.” 

Gretchen smiled as she folded the letter up. 

“I shall now see him,” she thought, “ and 
it will all be well.” 

Notturino smiled, too. He wxmld take the 
letter himself, for one could never trust these 
waiters; and besides he had several things to 
do in the town. 

Gretchen gave it to him, and he went away. 

“Pretty,” he said to himself, opening and 
reading it, as he strolled up and down his own • 
room. “ Madame might well say she wished 
I would coine to make things straight. Poor 
child ! Well, if she thinks he will not come, so 
much the better.” And then he began to put 
his things together for the journey. 

Gretchen waited restlessly. Jean would have 
her note in five minutes ; in five more Roger 
might come. A quarter of an hour passed, 
half an hour. In another half-hour they must 


90 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


start. Would he not come? Had she asked 
in vain, then? Gretchen’s face overclouded 
again, but there was a touch of pride in its 
sadness this time. 

Notturino came back. 

“This friend of yours is tardy. Perhaps 
in England it is not the way that young girls 
make appointments so. It might have been 
better, Gretchen, that you had let madame give 
your farewells for you.” 

A bright light flashed in Gretchen’s eyes. 

“Madame, is it that I have not done well ?” 

“I know not, my child. These English 
ways are so different. Trouble not yourself, 
though. There is no wrong in your heart. 
If he comes not, you are still but as you were. 
But I forgot. Do you want money ?” 

“No, madame,” said Gretchen, quietly. 
“You remember that you did give me some 
yesterday. It is not that. I am now ready 
to go. I will not be sorry any more.” 

“That is right, little one. One day you will 
come back, and all will be well. It is now 
time that you go.” 

A cab was sent for, madame kissed the girl 
tenderly, bade her be of good cheer until they 
met again, and within a couple of hours from 
the close of. the oratorio Notturina and the 
prima donna's little favorite were on their road 
to the Cruxborough station. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

Patch, sitting on the steps of the cathedral 
door, rocking to and fro in her dumb, ineffect- 
ual misery, felt that she had made a fatal mis- 
take by following that sudden impulse of pas- 
sion. She had placed herself in direct antag- 
onism to Notturino. Instead of quietly ob- 
serving his plans, and then as quietly frustra- 
ting them by information which she could supply 
to Gretchen, she had brought her own personal 
hatred into the matter. She had made this 
man her enemy by defying him to bis face. 
Now all his skill, all his energy, all his craft 
Avould be directed against her. Being awake 
to the danger of her presence, he would use ev- 
ery means to rid himself of it, or, at any rate, 
to keep Gretchen out of her way. Ah, if she 
had but strangled that serpent of rage when 
first it thrust forth its hissing tongue ! but now 
it had wrapped her in its coils, and now she 
was crushed, powerless, able to see only the on- 
coming steps of mischief, not any more to stay 
them. 

She looked across to the little bow-window- 
ed shop. It was brightly lighted up now, and 
Mrs. Bratchet was sitting behind the counter. 
Patch rose and went to her. Possibly she 
might hear something about Gretchen. At 
any rate, even to talk about her would do some- 
thing to help away this dull, black despair which 
had taken hold upon her. 

Mrs. Bratchet, in her clean print gown, clean 


cap and white apron, knitting away there be- 
hind the counter, looked the picture of cheer- 
ful gravity. She had been at the house all 
day. Mrs. Monkeston was not worse, but 
some one needed to be constantly with her, in 
case the faintness came on again ; so Mrs. 
Bratchet, having been home for half an hour, 
and finding all right there, had come back to 
attend to the shop. 

“Mercy on us!” she said, starting up as 
Patch’s tall figure darkened the door-way. 
“You come in so still, while I thought it was 
a sperit. You’re a welcome sight, anyway, for 
1 was a-wondering about them there baskets. 
I lay you’ve been to the college yard.” 

“Yes,” said Patch. “Gretchen told me 
where they belonged, and I delivered the things 
all right, so you may rest easy. I’ve got the 
money, too — five-and-sixpence from Ballingers, 
and four shillings from Balmains, and some 
more from the ‘ Cruxborough Arms.’ ” 

“ Never heed it, honey, while morning ; it’s 
safe enough in your pockets, I’se warrant. I 
haven’t paid you this good bit past for the 
fetchin’ and the carryin’; and then there’s them 
starch things last week to go forrad. We’ll 
settle it up to-morrow, and make the money 
even. You haven’t seed ought of Gretchen, 
have you ?” 

“ Yes ; I saw her come to the Festival in 
madame’s carriage; and I saw her go away in 
it, too. I wish any body would tell me what 
it means.” 

“Why, it means madame’s been and gone 
and sent for her again, that’s what it means ; 
and there’ll never be no peace now while she 
gets fairly swept in among ’em. I’ve telled 
her she’d be a vast safer among her own sort ; 
and I’ve set it afore her what a good home she’d 
have with Miss Jean here ; but, law ! you might 
as well set a linnet’s cage door open, and then 
stand on t’other side with a bit of sugar. When 
they’ve a chance they’ll go.” 

Patch leaned her elbows on the counter, and 
rested her sharp chin in the palms of her two 
hands. Not at all a customer likely to increase 
the respectability of the little shop; so Mrs. 
Bratchet asked her round to a chair at the 
back where she would not be so conspicuous. 

“ No, thank you,” she said, wearily. “I’ll 
go out again somewhere. I’m bfetter out.” 

“Out again!” And Mrs. Bratchet stopped 
to count the stitches on her needle. “You’d 
a deal better go and sit down at your own fire- 
side, and have a bit o’ something, and make 
yourself comfortable. You look as if you were 
starved out. I’ll away to Gurtha, and fetch 
you a bite of bread-and-cheese.” 

Patch did not refuse the offered kindness, 
for she was beginning to feel very faint. Mrs. 
Bratchet soon came back with a plentiful sup- 
ply, and a mug of milk. 

“Here, then; Gurtha says you’re welcome. 
And maybe, if you’re for going out again, you 
wouldn’t mind calling at the ‘Cruxborough 
Arms,’ and asking if Gretchen’s there. It’s all 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


91 


; i light if she is, nobbut one likes to know ; and, 

; better still, if madame wants to keep her over- 
: night, for then I’d stop here with the missis, 
as maybe somebody extry ’ud be a convenience. 
I lay the wench wouldn’t like being with her- 
I self in the house, or I’d stop anyways.” 

“You may, then,” said Patch, “and I’ll see 
: to her. She can sleep with me easy enough at 
j Daniel’s cottage. I’ll look after her as long as 
I you want to be here ; and I’ll go straight away 
now, or I shall not see her before she begins to 
, get ready for the concert.” 

And Patch went away. Nothing could have 
! been more according to her own wishes than 
that errand which Mrs. Bratchot had given her 
to the “ Cruxborough Arms,” and the chance 
I of having Gretchen under her care for a night 
or two. If only she could keep within reach 
of the girl, get speech with her now and then, 

, all might yet be well. 

She went to the hotel. A waiter whom she 
I had not seen before came to her. 

“A young girl named Gretchen Miiller is 
here with madame the prima donna — Madame 
I Fortebraccliio. Will you say I want to see 
her? I have brought a message from Mrs. 
Bratchet in the college yard — the woman with 
whom she lodges.” 

Patch thought she had better keep her own 
I name back ; that was not very likely to bring 
Gretchen down, if the signor were able to pre- 
vent her from coming. 

The waiter returned in a minute or two. 
Madame was very sorry indeed, but the young 
person had just gone away. If any of her 
friends had any questions to ask, or if any debts 
had been left unpaid, madame would be at lib- 
erty for an hour after fioon the next day, and 
would be very glad to settle every thing. 

“Gone?” said Patch. “What does it mean ? 
Where has she gone ?” 

“Dunno, missis. Isn’t no concern o’ mine. 
That’s all the message the lady gave me. I reck- 
on you’d best be off now. We haven’t no room 
here to-night for such as you. It’s overthrong.” 

Patch turned and went to a side door, where 
she could generally pick up some one whom 
she knew. She was not disappointed ; her old 
friend of the dinner-scraps was just coming 
along with an empty tray. 

“Nothing for you this time, Patch,” he said, 
cheerily. “ It’s only just took in. You should 
have come a bit later, and I’d have took care 
you got something. Law! but you do look as 
if you wanted filling up a bit. Washing’s a 
bad trade, an’t it ?” 

“It does for me,” said Patch. “ I don’t take 
a deal of feeding. And I’m not hungry cither, 
for that matter, thank you. I came with a 
message for the young woman whom madame 
has taken such a fancy to, but one of the wait- 
ers told me she had gone out.” 

“Well, yes, if you call setting off to London 
going out, I should say she’s gone out, fast 
enough. I fetched a cab for them myself not 
a quarter of an hour back.” 


“Them? Why, who do you mean?” said 
Patch, with a terrible prevision of what Nottu- 
rino might have done to get Gretchen away 
from the place. ‘ ‘ I want the young girl who 
lodges with Mrs. Bratchet.” 

“Ay, that same. She’s in good luck, for 
she’s going to madame’s house, and the signor’s 
took her. I heard that much, for madame 
come with her right away to the front door, 
and kissed her, and made as much fuss as if 
she’d been her own daughter ; and no wonder 
neither, for she’s a real sweet creature. I 
shouldn’t wonder if you was to catch ’em yet,” 
he continued, noting what might be a flash of 
angry surprise in Patch’s eyes, and thinking 
perhaps she had come about some money due 
to her from the young girl. “The train don’t 
go while seven, and there’s plenty o’ short cuts 
back way, for them as knows ’em, to the sta- 
tion. I likes folks to have their own, if that’s 
it. Across Perks’s yard, and down Cross Lane, 
you’d a’most be there in no time.” 

And the waiter stepped aside to look at the 
great clock in the entrance ; but when he came 
back Patch had disappeared. 

Like a wild creature she sped down the 
High Street, through the college yard, past the 
closed iron gates of the Woolsthorpe works. 
One of the church clocks struck seven ; then 
another. Almost she thought she heard the 
sharp, shrill shriek of the railway whistle. 

“God help me!” panted the woman, her 
heart beating thick and loud and fast, as she 
struggled on against the driving wind ; and in 
the distance the station lights began to glim- 
mer through the dark. The cathedral chimes 
sounded the quarters, and then seven times the 
great bell Beat out its slow, heavy note. Fast- 
er, faster she fled ; and now she could see the 
red, glaring eyes of the London train — not 
moving, no, thank Heaven ! not moving, only 
staring at her like balls of fire in the misty 
dark ; faster, faster; and now that was indeed 
the railway whistle, as Patch tore through the 
entrance, and the red eyes began to quiver, 
and the black line of carriages writhed slowly, 
slowly along, slipping past her one by one, as 
faint, breathless, she pressed forward, until, 
just as she stood upon the platform, the last 
glided by. In it she caught the flash of Gret- 
chen’s golden curls, and by the door sat the 
Signor Notturino, who, seeing the woman rush 
on, wild, excited, past the porters, who tried 
to hold her back, raised his hat to her, and 
sneered, with infinite politeness. There was 
no need to be angry with the poor wretch any 
more. 

And now, indeed, it seemed that all was lost. 

But a bright thought flashed through Patch’s 
brain, even as she stood there on the platform 
glaring after the departing carriages. A quar- 
ter of a mile along the rail was the shunting, 
to which the south trains ran very slowly ; and 
there was sometimes a delay of a few minutes 
before they got on the other line. She had 
j Mrs. Bratchet’s money in her pocket — more 


92 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


than fifteen shillings. There might be time 
yet for her to take a ticket, and reach the train 
before it started again. Quietly turning away, 
that the people standing about might not notice 
or follow her, she went to the office, asked for 
her ticket, and going out by a back way slipped 
past in the dark, and ran along beside the line 
until she came up with the train. It had not 
yet begun to move again. Daniel was stand- 
ing on the step outside his van. 

“For Heaven’s sake, Daniel, let me in !” she 
said, clutching his arm. “ I’m all right. I’ve 
got a ticket. You needn’t be afraid.” 

Daniel looked at her keenly. Well for 
Patch that she had a good character with her 
landlady, had never been known to steal or do 
any thing dishonest. 

“You’re a decent woman,” he said; “but 
I wouldn’t do it for every body.” 

And then he opened the door of the nearest 
carriage and thrust her in, shut it with a re- 
sounding bang, sounded his whistle, and the 
train moved on. 

With just one great sob of thankfulness, 
which for the time drowned every other feel- 
ing, Patch fell back and closed her eyes. 
Gretchen would be safe now. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

For a while Patch could neither think, feel, 
nor fear. A kind of mental swoon came over 
her, and mercifully lulled her to rest. Then 
came the reaction. The tears gathered under 
her hot eyelids, and slowly rolled down her 
cheeks. By -and -by, when she opened her 
eyes, she found that a traveling-rug had been 
wrapped round her. Then some one held a 
flask of brandy to her lips. She drank, then 
lay back again, apparently taking no notice of 
any thing; but slowly her thoughts awoke; 
she was able once more to remember and look 
forward. 

There were yet four hours of quiet before 
the train reached London — time enough to 
gather herself up and consider what was to be 
done. The only thing which seemed perfectly 
clear to her at present was that Gretchen must 
be rescued from Notturino’s influence. She 
had meant, if she could but have reached the 
Oruxborough station in time, to have told her 
who and what this man was to whom she had 
committed the conduct of her life. She was 
sure the girl would have staid among the mean- 
est surroundings then, would have given up all 
her romantic dreams, and toiled on to the end 
of her days in Mr. Arncliffe’s lacquering-room, 
rather than have bought fame and wealth at 
the price which Notturino would have wished. 
And as for the truth of the strange story, told 
so suddenly, they knew each other. Gretchen 
had never heard any thing but truth from her 
lips — truth told harshly and roughly sometimes, 
but always truth. She would not have doubted. 


That story, then, must be told now, as soon 
as they got out at the London station. Not- 
turino, faced suddenly with his own dastardly 
life, Patch would have at least one friend on 
her side, and the signor could not so easily fee 
a policeman to drag her away. When the 
story was told, Gretchen should make her own 
choice. Patch did not fear what that choice 
would be, and they might come back to Crux- 
borough together ; or, perhaps better still, go 
quite away to Stuttgart, where Gretchen would 
be safe with her honest old mother. But all 
beyond the one fierce act of defiance seemed 
yet dim and uncertain. She could not think 
clearly about it. Scheme followed scheme in 
her busy brain, until the very effort became a 
weariness, and she was fain to rest her thoughts 
for a while by beginning to take note of her 
fellow-passengers. 

There were three of them. She knew two. 
One, a little gray-haired man, with a Times 
doubled over his knees, and a flask sticking 
out of one of his side pockets, was apparently 
asleep. The other, Mr. Armstrong, of Waste- 
wood, swathed, like a respectable nineteenth- 
century mummy, in endless folds of frieze and 
shoddy, was chatting away with the third pas- 
senger, a commercial traveler; and between 
them they very often knocked the wrong nail 
on the head, as people generally do who talk 
without knowing whom they are talking to. 

“Capital thing, I should say, that bank of 
Martinet’s,” began the traveler, after a little 
process of adjustment and shaking down, which 
had to be gone through every half-hour or so. 
“Best thing in Cruxborough, if it only lasts; 
but, as I tell people who cry up those magnifi- 
cent investments, ‘if’ Is a tremendously long 
w r ord sometimes.” 

“Why, you don’t think there’s any risk of 
its not turning up trumps, eh ?” 

“ Oh no ! For any thing I know it may be 
good for. fifty years to come. Only, you know’, 
when a string gets tightened up to the tune of 
five-and-twenty per cent, it don’t take a hard 
knock to make it go snap. That’s what I al- 
ways say. Lower your pitch a little, and then 
you can stand against a turn in the weather, 
damp, or panic, or that sort of thing, you know, 
sir. You don’t happen to be in it, perhaps ?” 

“ No. I had some shares there once, but I 
sold out. A fellow in the export trade like me 
can’t do w T ith his money tied up. It turns it- 
self over better in business.” 

“Ah! export trade. Don’t hear much of 
that in these parts. Carry it on through agents, 

I suppose ?” 

“Yes, agents.” 

“Ah! I like a business of that kind, that 
you can sit in your counting-house and rake 
the money to you, without tearing up and 
dou’n after it. There’s a lawyer in Cruxbor- 
ough, though — Ballinger, maybe you know 
him, rather a stirring man about the place — 
who has a splendid lot of shares in Martinet’s ; 
indeed, they say that’s what keeps him up. 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


93 


Plenty of string for the kite, sir ; nothing like 
that for making it get up well, and a tidy breeze 
of self-conceit to start with. I suppose it was 
old Hiram Armstrong, of Wastewood, that 
gave him the first notion of it. Old Hiram, 
you know, made a great deal of money out of 
the bank. He was a better friend to Bal- 
linger, though, if they say true, than to poor 
Ralph Monkeston, of the Willowmarshes. Bad 
thing for Ralph when he found out the taste 
of the Wastewood brandy.” 

“Perhaps I had better tell you,” said the 
other, taking out a cigar and lighting it, “ that 
Mr. Hiram Armstrong was my uncle.” 

“ Beg pardon, sir, no offense. Old Mr. Arm- 
strong was a most respectable man — wouldn’t 
have said it if I’d known, of course, but it only 
came as I heard it ; and people will talk. Very 
sorry, though, ’pon my word I am.” 

“Never mind,” said Mr. Armstrong, giving 
his individual attention for a moment to the 
progress of affairs at the end of his cigar. 
Puff, puff. “I always let people have their 
say” — puff, puff — “and then I put mine in; 
and what I’ve got to say is this, if a fellow 
can’t say no to a glass too much, he’d better 
blame himself before other folks blame any one 

I else for him. Why, sir, where should I have 
been now, do you think, and knocking about 
all my life down there in the colonies, if I hadn’t 
been able to put my hand on the top of my glass 
when I’d had enough ?” 

The commercial traveler looked inquisitive- 
ly into the face of his companion, as if he should 
like to know th,e situation a little better before 
he said what he thought. Mr. Armstrong re- 
plied to the look, 

“Export trade — hard goods — Sydney and 
Adelaide. Settled down at Cruxborough a 
while ago, because of the property at Waste- 
wood, but a dreadfully dull old hutch of a 
place.” 

“Oh! I’m in the drapery line — very good 
house in Manchester. Sorry I mentioned 
any thing about old Mr. Armstrong, sir — very 
sorry.” 

“No offense. Don’t mind it a bit. But 
poor old Uncle Hiram set himself straight at 
the last, if there ever was any thing wrong. 
He came down very handsomely, he did ; and 
what Ralph lost, young Roger won.” 

“Indeed, sir — I wasn’t aware. Shows one 
shouldn’t come down too sharp upon a man 
until you get the particulars. Came down 
handsomely, did he ?” 

The little man with the gray hair, who had 
been exhibiting signs of returning animation 
for some time, now rubbed his eyes, and began 
to listen quietly. 

“ Yes, I should call it very handsomely in- 
deed. I had a letter from him, poor old boy — 

I I was out in Adelaide then, you know — couldn’t 
have been written above a week before his 
death — and he told me he’d handed over some 
of those Martinet bank shares to Mr. Ballin- 
ger, for the benefit of Ralph Monkeston’s son 


— enough for his education, and to put him out 
to something respectable when the time came 
for it. I call that a tidy thing for a man to 
do — a very tidy thing indeed; and specially 
when, as you may say, there’s no particular call 
for it.” 

“Yerv, sir. I’ll never say another word 
against the old gentleman as long as I live. 
You see, coming to Cruxborough as I do on 
business, and always stopping at the ‘ Crown 
and Cushion,’ I hear something of what's go- 
ing on ; and I’ve picked up a good deal about 
those Monkestons, one way and another. Mrs. 
Monkeston’s a very respectable party. I call 
there sometimes with soft goods — she’s in the 
ready-made linen line, you know — and some- 
times I ask how things are going. And that 
straightens up what rather puzzled me a good 
while back, when Roger got into the Wools- 
thorpe works. Wonderful man, that Mr. Arn- 
cliffe of the Woolsthorpe works — don’t happen 
to know him, do you, sir ?” 

“ No ; doesn’t do any thing in my way. If 
it had been knives and forks, I dare say we 
should have smoked a cigar together long 
enough before this. Heard of him, though, 
often enough. And so young Monkeston has 
gone there, has he ?” 

“Yes, sir — been there this eight years and 
more. I must say I was a bit puzzled when I 
heard of his going to a place like that, where 
it takes a good round hundred or so to get 
a lad in, and a favor too, when all’s said and 
done ; but of course if your uncle gave them a 
lift in that way, it was the best thing Ballinger 
could do with the money. That squares it up 
exactly ; for Arncliffe isn’t a man, as far as I 
know, to let things go at half-price.” 

Puff, puff. Mr. Armstrong showed symp- 
toms of dozing. His companion took the hint, 
and kept quiet, having ascertained by a look to- 
ward his other neighbor that no conversation 
was to be expected in that direction. Not 
another word was spoken until the train began 
to slacken speed for ticket collecting. 

“ I’ll trouble you for that rug now, ma’am, if 
you please ;” and the little man leaned aside to 
Patch, who, coming to herself as out of a deep 
reverie, began to thank him for it in a very re- 
spectful manner. 

“I think I know your face, don’t I?” said 
he, folding up his newspaper. “ I’m sure I’ve 
seen it before.” 

“ Yes, sir. I’m over the women in the lac- 
quering-room.” 

“ To be sure. I might have known that di- 
rectly, only I don’t often go in there now. Out 
of health— eh?” 

“No, sir, thank you, only rather tired.” 

“ Long way from home — leaving off work ?” 

“Perhaps, sir — I’m not quite sure. I can’t 
tell just what I may be going to do.” 

“All right — no consequence. Only, if you 
happen to want a character, you know I shall 
be glad to give you one any time.” 

Then the train stopped, and Mr. Arncliffe, 


94 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


who had come up to Loudon to read his paper 
before the Royal Society, got out. So did Mr. 
Armstrong and the commercial traveler ; but 
Patch waited until, among the crowds of peo- 
ple who thronged the platform, she caught 
sight of the broad, square-built form of the Sign- 
or Notturino, with Gretchen at his side. He 
shouldered his way through, turning now and 
then to see that his companion was safe, to the 
steps of the first-class waiting-room, where he 
left her, and went farther up the station to the 
refreshment-rooms. 

Then Patch sprang out, darted across the 
platform, laid her hand with a firm grasp on 
Gretchen’s arm, and said, in a low voice, 

“ Come with me.” 

That was all. Something in the terrible 
earnestness of her face, the strong clasp of her 
hand, the look of her hollow, burning eyes, told 
the rest. Without a word Gretchen followed. 
There was no time either to think or to hesi- 
tate. Patch put her into a cab, and got in be- 
side her. 

“ To the London Bridge station.” 

They stopped there. Patch waited at one 
of the entrances until the driver was out of 
sight again, and then, instead of going into the 
station, went to a little lodging-house a quar- 
ter of a mile away — a place which she had 
known well in years past — and there she bade 
the girl rest. Truly she needed rest herself, 
too. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

It was a cheerless little room, such as may 
be found by dozens in many a back street of 
London — dull, dingy, smoke-dried. Up to its 
very doors the seething, restless tide of turmoil 
and tumult rolled, but turned back there, and 
left the place undisturbed in its gray, dead level 
of discomfort. 

Gretchen, utterly worn out now with alter- 
nate hope, disappointment, anxiety, and terror, 
lay down on the hard bed, and presently began 
to sob hysterically. Patch chafed her hands 
and feet, then fetched her a cup of tea, and 
when she had taken it, watched by her until 
she slept. 

“ Lie still, child. You are safe here. When 
you are rested, I will tell you all.” 

But there was no sleep for Patch. Until the 
gray dawn of the morning peeped in through 
the curtained window and the din of traffic 
waxed -strong again, she sat thinking, thinking. 

That journey had ended much better than 
she could have hoped. There had been no 
scene with Notturino, no need for defying him, 
no struggle to drag Gretchen away. Things 
had shaped themselves better than any fore- 
thoughts of hers could have shaped them. 
Patch could not keep back a grim smile as she 
pictured to herself the most noble signor com- 
ing back from his brandy and soda-water, which 
he loved so well, and finding no Gretchen to 


take care of any more. How very grand he 
would look ! how very mighty ! Of course, 
after he had searched for her all over the sta- 
tion, he would go to inquire of the cabmen, and 
find out that two people had been taken to l.he 
London Bridge station. And then — what 
then ? 

Patch chuckled. It was a relief to have 
something to laugh about. In those days the 
Argus eye of the telegraph did not look into 
every nook and corner of civilized England. 
Patch, sitting there in the little back room of the 
little back house, had no fear of a detective in 
plain clothes laying his hand on her shoulder, 
and quietly walking off with her to the nearest 
police station. Justice worked more slowly — 
and so did injustice, too, for that matter — when 
even railways were a recently invented luxury, 
and the penny newspaper press was not forever 
disturbing society’s ocean floor with its terrible 
dredging-net. Twenty years later, Patch might 
have trembled ; now, thinking of the signor’s 
discomfiture, she need only smile. 

After some hours of disturbed sleep, Gret- 
chen awoke. 

“Bring to me my music,” she said; “it 
will soon be time that I go with madame to 
the oratorio.” 

Then she stretched herself wearily, gazed 
round the unfamiliar, comfortless little room, 
listened to the ceaseless roar of life w hich was 
forever surging and foaming outside, so differ- 
ent from the hush of the old college yard at 
Cruxborough, into which, only the morning be- 
fore, she had awakened. 

“Where am I, then ?” she said at last; 
“and what is every thing ?” 

“I w r ould I could tell you, child,” answered 
Patch ; “ I should be a wise woman. But you 
are safe here with me now. Eor a while you 
may rest and be at peace.’ , 

Gretchen only sighed, and turned her face 
away to the wall. She w r as too tired, too con- 
fused to think. For the last day or two the 
scenes in the little drama of her life had been 
shifting so quickly. This perpetual effort to 
realize what was as perpetually changing and 
re-arranging itself had worn her out. She 
could only let herself drift passively on now ; 
she could neither remember nor hope. What 
did it all mean, then ? Was it only a dream ? 
Should she w T ake by-and-by and find herself 
again in the lacquering-room at the Wools- 
thorpe w r orks, singing to that voice which used 
to answer her so sweetly — coming home, night 
by night, to the cheerful quiet of the good 
Frau Bratchet’s little kitchen? But all that 
w r as so dim and indistinct now\ Over it, like 
fresco-painting in some old village church, lay 
the gorgeous coloring which the last two days 
had brought into her life ; and over that, again, 
lay a wash of faded gray, through whose dull 
monotony here and there a touch of gold and 
crimson showed, and, more rarely still, a bit of 
the old solid marble under all. 

“ Speak to me,” she said to Patch, reaching 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


95 


out to feel for a hand to clasp hers in this 
strange confusion. “ I shall then know that I 
do not dream. Tell me something.” 

“ I will tell you all, child ; it is time you 
heard it ; and then you shall rest again, and 
we will think what is to be done. Eaith, it is 
a sad story, but a true one.” 

Patch put her arm round Gretchen, held her 
very closely for a little while, and then began : 

“A long time ago, child — ah me! it seems 
a very long time ago, for the years go slowly 
when one has to starve through them as I have 
| done — I was young, and happy enough — ay, 
and some said not ill-favored, too — as I went 
| through the Naples streets with my basket of 
flowers ; and I lived with an old peasant wom- 
an, who chided me if I did not come home ev- 
ery night with my basket empty, and my pock- 
et full of bojocchi. It was a hard life — but 
what then ? We do not suffer when our hearts 
are light, and old Bianca never chided me so 
but that I could sing like a nightingale when 
she had done. And one night I was thus sing- 
ing in the dusk among the vines on the road- 
side by our cottage, and there came a signor, 
who staid to listen to me, and praised me 
much, and asked of me all my life, and said I 
was made for better things than to sell flowers 
for the old Bianca. So he would have me 
taught ; and many a day he came, and I car- 
ried mv flower-basket out no more ; for now 
all the time I worked hard, that I might one 
day.be a great singer. And he told me he 
loved me, and that I should be his wife ; and 
no good mother said to me, ‘Have a care, thou 
foolish child ; he is too great for thee. Gold 
can never wed with clay ; it must be that they 
will one day drop apart.’ So I went forth to 
my life with him, my grand husband ; and if 
he was noble, I was fair, and there had been 
brought to me, even as to him, the beautiful 
gift of song that made us of the same country. 
And for a while I was happy, and the days 
seemed never long, until one day the fever 
came, and it touched me, and my beauty went, 
and my voice ; and when, after long weeks, I 
looked forth upon the world again, I was a 
faded old woman. Why should he love me 
then, when he could no longer be proud of me 
— when I could no longer do him any good ? 
If at night I brought my flowers back to old 
Bianca, and they were withered, did I keep 
j: them? did I care for them ? No. There was 
the dusty road-side — let them lie there and die. 
So he threw me away — he told me he was 
tired of me ; and do you think that so I would 
| stay by him any longer? There was to me 
only my pride left, and a dead memory of the 
days when we had seemed to belong to each 
other ; and I left him, that he might make for 
himself his own life ; and I could not any more 
sell flowers — one must have for that bright eyes 
and rosy cheeks, and lips like the red pome- 
granate in its ripeness. So I came to Lon- 
don, and I used to sing with some people in 
| the streets, and I lived in this little room, and 


for a while it was not so bad. But I had not 
sunshine enough to keep me warm, and my 
singing was no longer good, and they would 
not have me with them ; and one told me that 
I could live for less money far off in that old 
place of Cruxborough ; so I went there, and in 
the cold winter-time I was singing for pence in 
the street before Mr. Armstrong’s house, and he 
had pity on me, and took me in, and I served 
him with all my heart until he died.” 

“Yes; and then you went to the Wools- 
thorpe works, I know,” said Gretchen, whose 
tender eyes looked now through tears of pity 
at the lean, haggard, yellow face beside her. 
“Ah! but then how the world is cruel, and 
how I love you for that you have suffered ! 
And is it that you have never seen him more, 
this signor, who gave over to care for you ?” 

“Stop, and I will tell you. It is near the 
end now. I could not quite forget my old life 
— how should I ? and when I knew there was 
music, I must needs go to listen. Also, how 
knew I but that I might again see him ? Well, 
Mr. Arncliffe gave me work in the lacquering- 
room ; and one day you came there, and I 
watched you, and you sang, even as I once 
sang in the old days ; and I loved you, and I 
learned that you had no friends ; so I brought 
you to where I lived, that you might not be 
quite alone. But it seemed to me that you 
were not safe; for ah! child, it is a Avicked 
world, and you looked it too fearlessly in the 
face ; and many came and went where we 
were, and I watched their eyes upon you, and 
I was afraid ; and I asked the good Mrs. Brat- 
chet to let you be with her, for then you would 
be quite safe.” 

“I remember all this,” said Gretchen. “I 
see it now so far back. But why come you not 
again to yourself? I would know did you ever 
see the signor, your husband, again?” 

“Wait, child. It was before this Festival 
began ; and I saw that something had dis- 
quieted you. And then one night you spoke 
of your home at Stuttgart, and that you had 
learned music at the Conservatoire, and that 
your mother would have you away, for she 
feared all might not be well. And there came 
to me suddenly a great light, which showed me 
sorrow for you. But I waited patiently, for 
how could I tell? And I watched, and I was 
anxious ; and at last this signor came of whom 
madame had said that she would name you to 
him ; and he was Notturino, my husband, Gret- 
chen ; and I saw him bring you to the Festival, 
and lift you out of that carriage, and I feared, 
for I knew how it would be then. And after- 
ward, in my anger, I defied him, and he was too 
strong for me ; and that I should not see you 
any more, he persuaded madame that she should 
let you come away with him at once. Well for 
me that I found it out! Mrs. Bratchet had 
sent me with a message for you to the hotel, 
and the waiter told me you had just gone. I 
went so quickly to the station — it takes my 
breath away now to think of it — and I was just 


9G 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


too late ; but I saw you, and, ha ! how the sign- 
or did sneer at me, for he thought the game 
was all in his own hands then. But it was 
not. I conquered, and now you are here.” 

il Ach, Himmel!” said Gretchen, “what a 
wicked world it is ! Whom, then, may one 
trust ? And madame was so good to me.” 

“Madame is good. She does not know. 
No one does know. I would not harm him 
while he does no wrong. Nay, even if I spoke, 
who would then believe me ? for I am poor, and 
I know little, and they think that I am crazy. 
And so I may be — I can not tell. But when I 
saw him reach out and lay his hand on yon, 
and when I knew how he would draw you after 
him, and flatter you with his fair words, then my 
strength came to me, and it was told me what 
I should do. Ah ! child, the world is fair to 
those who look out upon it from under the shad- 
ow of golden curls like yours; and hope is 
strong, and life is very sweet; but I would 
rather see you in your grave — yes, with my own 
hands, look ” — and Patch stretched out those 
long, lean fingers of hers — “I would grip your 
soft white throat until you died, before you 
should know what I have known, and learn to 
give your love where nothing but a curse could 
come upon it !” 

Gretchen turtied, and laid her cheek against 
Patch’s withered face. 

“ Often you have made me fear because you 
were so ernst. Your life was not as my life. 
I could not come near to you. Now we do both 
suffer, and it makes us that we are no longer 
strangers. Ah ! then, what shall we do ? There 
are none who care for us. Must we then live 
here and work ? Would that I could once more 
kneel by my mother, and hear her say to me, 
mein Kind ; I would then be at rest.” 

“You shall go, child — you will be nowhere 
better. I have thought about it. It will not 
be well for us to go back to Cruxborough, for 
there Notturino will first seek you. He may 
go safely enough now, for no one can tell him 
any thing. Perhaps, after we have given him 
time to go there and seek you and be disap- 
pointed, we might return; but then we must 
explain all, and many would not believe us, and 
you would be evil spoken of.” 

“Also I do not wish it,” said Gretchen, sad- 
ly and quietly. ‘ * I think that my friends there, 
whom I trusted, do not remember me. When 
I found that I must go away so quickly, and 
madame wished me not to leave her any more, 
I did write to the Fraulein Monkeston, asking 
her that she would but for one moment come to 
me, or that her brother would let me give him 
my farewell ; but she came not. It may be she 
is angry that I leave her. Or is it that she 
thinks I am what you call bold, that I ask the 
Herr Monkeston to come to me ? Ja wohl , then 
I do belong to myself. I give her no more rea- 
son that she does turn away from me.” 

Patch was not sorry that Gretchen had no 
wish to return to Cruxborough. Notturino’s 
influence would be always about her there ; her 


will would never be safe from the strong, over- 
mastering power of his. Stuttgart was the only 
safe refuge for her. They would go together 
there, and the good Frau should know all. 

“ But we must wait, child, until w r c earn mon- 
ey, or until your mother can send us some. It 
costs much to go so far. You are poor, and so 
am I. I took the money that was given me for 
Mrs. Bratchet’s washing to pay my fare here, 
but the good soul shall have it again one of 
these days. I will not rob her.” 

“ Ah ! but,” said Gretchen, brightly, “ I have 
money.” And she opened the little pouch in 
which lay madame’s note and the blue ribbon. 
“ Look here ; this what I would have worked 
for ten whole weeks at the Herr Arncliffe’s, un- 
til that I had earned it, and madame gave it to 
me when I did sing to her last night. Last 
night ? Ah ! then, is it indeed but last night, 
and I have lived so long since then? It 
seems to me that I can never again be young.” 

Patch took the ngte, examined it, then look- 
ed keenly into Gretchen’s face. 

“ Did madame give you this ? Are you sure ? 
Was it not the Signor Notturino?” 

“No,” said the girl. “He did give to me 
nothing. It pleased madame that I sang to 
her, and she put it herself into my pouch, and 
told me I could look at it afterward. And 
when I came away she asked me would I have 
more, but I liked not that she should give me 
charity.” 

“That is well. I would rather, chil? ; fhat 
you pined and begged than that you took any 
thing from the Signor Notturino. And whence 
came, then, that blue ribbon?” 

Gretchen smoothed it gently out, and pressed 
it to her cheeks before she put it back into the 
pouch. She did not blush at all, nor seem dis- 
turbed, only there was just a quiet unhopeful - 
ness in her voice as she answered, 

“The Herr Monkeston gave it to me, and 
bade me that I should wqar it at the Festival. 
And the Fraulein Jean placed it for me in my 
hair. And now they forget ; and when I ask 
that he would once more come and see me be- 
fore I go, he comes not. Even he thinks that 
I am forward, then. Ah ! why is it that they 
do not understand ? And now there is nothing 
for me but that I go home.” 

“Better so, child. Madame’s money will 
keep us here for a few days until we know what 
we shall do. I will go with you myself, and 
stay at Stuttgart a while. Everywhere one 
must work. I may as well work there as else- 
where.” 

“ That is beautiful,” said Gretchen, dragging 
down poor Patch’s head until she could touch 
the thin, parched lips with her own, so soft and 
rosy. “You will, then, stay by us; and my 
mother will love you because you have been 
so good to me, and endlich we shall all be at 
peace. There is no more any song in me now. 
It is to me long ago that I was happy, and that 
I had friends who loved me, and that I wished 
to go forth into the Citroncn-land. I will be 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


content that I do my duty in the little home. 
Would I had never left it, for truly it is very 
hard to live in this world!” 

And Gretchen hid her face and wept. Ah ! 
now, if in the shadow of the old cathedral one 
voice of human love and tenderness had whis- 
pered to her, “Stay, Gretchen — stay,” would 
she have turned awavand murmured, “I know 
not?” 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

When the Signor Notturino, having fortified 
I himself with that portion of brandy and soda- 
! water which was so needful to the sustcntation 
! of his outer man, returned to the entrance of 

I the ladies’ waiting-room, he found no Gretchen 
i there. He called her, but she did not answer ; 
j i he looked into the empty carriages which were 

still drawn up beside the platform; no one was 
i to be seen. Then he began to inquire of the 

I I guards and porters, some of whom fancied they 
I i had seen a girl such as he described, but could 
j not be quite sure. One said a girl in a blue 
| : cloak had been seen on the other side of the 
j > platform, standing by the down train ; another 

i thought she might very likely have mistaken 
! the carriages, and taken her seat in one which 
' had been going on. It was dangerous, they 
I j said, to leave young girls alone in a station like 
J; -that where there was so much traffic. They 
I were en re to get confused, and then there was 
I no telling what might nappen. 

! At last, after nearly an hour of fruitless 
I search, one of the porters suggested that they 
should go to the cab-stand, and inquire if a girl 
| answering to Gretchen’s appearance had been 
> there. His inquiry threw a little light on the 
1 subject. After catechising a whole row of men, 

( some of whom were sure they could give him 
just the information he wanted, and then dis- 
covered that their description did not tally at 
all, he came to one who had just returned from 
the London Bridge station. A queer-looking 
woman had come to him, he said ; he could not 
remember her dress, but she was tall and thin 
and dark, and had on a faded red shawl, and 
with her came a young girl in a blue cloak and 
hood. The man took notice of her, he said, be- 
cause she was not dressed like an English girl ; 
and she had a bundle in her hand, and a roll 
of something. He did not hear her speak, so 
| lie could not tell any thing about that ; but the 
dark woman talked like a foreigner, and told 
; him to take them to London Bridge station. 

I He had set them down there, come back to his 
i stand at once ; and that was all he knew. 

To London Bridge the signor repaired. His 
old enemy, Patch, had evidently turned up 
again, and got the girl away with her; but 
how, was more than he could divine. A train 
was just starting to Dover; another to South- 
ampton. He looked into all the carriages of 
I both — no blue cloak or faded red shawl reward- 
ed his search. There was nothing for it now 
7 


97 

but to go quietly home and think over what 
had happened. 

So Notturino, chafing with rage and disap- 
pointment, betook himself to the handsome 
suite of apartments in Cambridge Terrace, 
where he was supposed by a confiding public, 
Madame Fortebracchio included, to live a 
somewhat luxurious bachelor life. Was it for 
this, then, that he had given himself so much 
trouble — told so many untruths? — unpleasant 
work, of course, for a gentleman of his position 
— kept back messages, made up stories, and 
woven such a clever net-work of deceit; for 
this that poor little Gretchen’s note, with its 
pitiful wail of entreaty, lay in his pocket, un- 
read by any one but himself ; for this, to be 
checkmated by a woman, and that woman the 
wife he had wearied of and cast away? 

How had she done it? With his own eyes 
he had seen her on the Cruxborough platfbrm, 
glaring at him with a pale passion of despair 
in her face, as the train moved slowly away ; 
and few things had ever been more satisfactory 
to him than the sneering farewell he gave her 
then. Now, she was at his heels again, trip- 
ping him up just as his plans seemed to be 
crowned with success — outwitting him at the 
very moment he might have thought there was 
nothing to fear. She must have run after the 
train to the shunting-point, and got in there. 
A bright idea, certainly — wonderfully clever, 
if only it had not interfered quite so much with 
his own convenience. However, the thing was 
done now. Patch and Gretchen were off some- 
where — to the Continent, most likely, unless 
that going to London Bridge station were only 
a trick to put off search for a little while until 
they could come back to Cruxborough. He 
could wait. Time and tide, and his own strong 
will, would most likely bring the girl back to 
him some day, when neither honest Frau nor 
revengeful Italian should stand in his way any 
more. 

Meanwhile he must invent some story which 
would satisfy Madame Fortebracchio. She 
seemed to have a real liking for the little Ger- 
man girl, and would be very sorry to hear of 
her disappearance. Worse than that, too, she 
would most likely insist on making inquiries, 
rooting out the whole story, and with it divers 
other facts, which for his own comfort had bet- 
ter remain hidden. It would be better not to 
say any thing at all about it until she returned 
from her tour. She would take for granted 
that the girl was all right. To tell her any- 
thing now would only raise a dust. She would 
write to the organist of Cruxborough Cathe- 
dral, to the countess, and others of her grand 
acquaintances there, and tell them how her plans 
had failed , and then there would be no end of 
trouble. Notturino could manage it more 
quietly than that. 

Accordingly, when, after the lapse of a few 
days, Madame Fortebradchio came home, the 
signor told her, with a grave face, that he was 
afraid she would be very much disappointed. 


98 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


Gretehen’s heart had failed her at the last, he 
said. She had begged so piteously to be al- 
lowed to go home to her mother — to stay with 
her, at any rate, for some months before enter- 
ing upon her new life — that he felt it would be 
wrong to resist her. Therefore, instead of fol- 
lowing madame’s instructions, he had been re- 
luctantly obliged to let the girl take her own 
way, and she had returned to Stuttgart, where 
most probably she w r ould be persuaded to stay. 
And, if madame would take his advice, she 
would leave her there. A girl of so little cour- 
age and resolution w ould never be likely to do 
any thing in her profession. Interest, trouble, 
money would all be wasted upon her. People 
must be allowed to choose their ow r n path ; she 
had chosen hers. She had put aw r ay from her 
a splendid future. He was very sorry; he 
never thought it would have ended in this way, 
but madame must let it be so. To interfere any 
further would be to trespass upon Gretchen’s 
free-will. 

Madame listened, believed, regretted ; then 
let the matter drop. Besides, the London con- 
cert season was just beginning, and she had 
many other things to think about. She w’ould 
have been a good friend to the girl, but' — 

And madame began to look through the cor- 
respondence which had accumulated during her 
absence from tow r n. So that little comedy was 
successfully played out. 

Gretchen remained for a day or two with her 
grim but faithful duenna, in that dingy little 
London lodging-house. Patch was no stranger 
there. She inquired about in different direc- 
tions, and at last heard of a lady who w r as re- 
quiring a nurse-girl for her children during 
the passage to Antwerp. Gretchen applied for 
the situation, and obtained it. There was still 
enough left of madame’s five pounds to pay 
Patch’s own fare, so they started, and w'ithin 
little more than a week of that eventful journey 
to London they were trudging along to the 
Frau Muller’s cottage, a mile out of Stuttgart, 
having written before to tell her of their com- 
ing. 

“Thou art welcome, child,” said the ruddy 
peasant woman, putting her knitting by, and 
looking placidly into Gretchen’s face. “And 
thou too, thou good friend who hast brought 
her to me. Stay w ith us now, and be as one 
of ourselves.” 

So she staid, and got up fine linen for the 
Stuttgart people, who had never had it done so 
well before ; and the honest Frau spun and 
knitted on as heretofore, while Gretchen, with 
a beam less of brightness in her trustful eyes, 
rook up again the life of humble industry from 
which only two years of so much chance and 
change had parted her. And if she hoped, or 
remembered, or was sad ; or if ever a tear of 
regret dropped upon that carefully-treasured 
Himmelblau ribbon ; or if in dreams the voice of 
Roger Monkeston soifietimes said to her, “Stay, 
Gretchen — stay,” no one ever asked ; for what 
knew they of any of these things 9 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Roger did not give to his sister Jean, in all 
its formal coldness, the message which had so 
bitterly changed his own life. She had enough 
to bear now, in the home anxieties which w-ere 
thickening upon them. No need to tell her how 
little thought or care Gretchen had showed for 
those who, in lesser need of her own, had so 
tenderly helped her. He only said that he had 
been to the hotel, had seen the Signor Notturino, 
that Gretchen was very busy and very tired, but 
perhaps in the morning she might be able to come. 
And then he had gone away to their mother. 

Jean was surprised. That was not like Gret- 
chen. ’ Were these great people, then, spoiling 
her so soon? Could she so easily forget the 
kindness which once seemed greatly prized ? 
But it might only be that she w r as weary and 
w r orn out by the constant strain and excitement 
of the last day or two. In the morning she 
would come, she would surely come, and then 
all would be right again. Roger need not look 
so grave and stern about it. 

Mrs. Monkeston was still very ill, in a crit- 
ical state now, as Mr. Balmain said, who cam’e 
several times during the day to sec her. To- 
ward evening the attacks of faintness became 
more frequent, the intervals of consciousness 
shorter. There had come over her face that 
change which people who have often watched 
the approach of death learn so well to under- 
stand. Yet still sometimes she brightened up 
a little. She w ould eveJ- speak quite cheerful- 
ly about things that must be 'done, arrange- 
ments that must be made, if for a few days she 
was unable to attend to the shop. Perhaps 
Gretchen would come and help them, she said, 
w’hen the Festival was over. It would not be 
for very long — she should be about soon herself. 
And Roger must not neglect his work iu Mr. 
Arncliffe’s office, and Jean must not tire her- 
self with too much running up and down stairs. 
And did Mrs. Bratchet understand about the 
prices of things in the shop? She was afraid 
there might be mistakes made. So the care- 
ful brain worked on while it had any cunning 
to work, and the strong, patient, dutiful spirit 
bore its burden even to the last. 

Mrs. Bratchet staid all night with them, re- 
lieving Jean and Roger in their watch. The 
message which Patch had promised to take to 
Gretchen at the hotel had set her quite at lib- 
erty ; for if Gretchen did not spend the night 
there, she would go with Patch to her own 
lodgings at the guard’s cottage, and so be well 
cared for. In the morning Mrs. Bratchet went 
home again to see if all w as going on right, and 
in about two hours she returned, looking some- 
w r hat disquieted and “ put out.” 

“You will try to stay with us a little while 
to-day, will you not ?” said Jean. “ We have 
no one else to help us. I thought Gretchen 
would have come to us before now'. It is 
strange, but perhaps she is tired with the con- 
cert last night.” 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


99 


“Stay, honey?” said Mrs. Bratchet, fidget- 
ing about with her bonnet and shawl in a man- 
ner very different from her usual quiet cheerful- 
ness — “ why, yes, there’s no call why I shouldn’t 
now ; and you needn’t look out no more for any 
thing she’ll do for you, an unthankful wench as 
she is ! I’ve had it on my mind this good bit 
past as something were like to come of all this 
musicianing and deed, a-putting folks past their 
proper hours, so as you never knew where you 
j had them ; but I didn’t think she was the one 
j to go that way, and never a word for them as 
i took her in and did for her, as you may say, 
and her that hearty at her meat as six shillings 
a week didn’t leave much into your pocket — 
no, that it didn’t; and wouldn’t ha’ took to it 
neither if I hadn’t thought as it might be a-lead- 
ing o’ Providence for her good.” 

“ Has Gretchen grieved you, Mrs. Bratchet?” 
j said Jean, thinking that perhaps other cold, in* 
j different messages had been sent besides that 
which puzzled her so the night before. “I 
am sorry. What is it ?” 

“What is it, honey? Why, then, it’s just 
this — she’s been and gone and tooken herself 
away with that Mr. What’n-ye-call-him, as 
come to sing at the Festival, with never so 
much as with your leave or by your leave to 
them as has been a mother to her, the bag- 
gage ! But I’ll never take a young woman in 
no more, that I won’t, not while I can see to 
the end of it a bit better.” 

Jean did not look so very much surprised. 
She thought Mrs. h -ratchet only meant that 
Gretchen had been sent for to the hotel again, 
and that perhaps this Signor Notturino, who 
was one of Madame Fortebracchio’s friends, 
had fetched her. It was thoughtless of the 
girl to go away so, but not very wrong, after 
all; and she would no doubt make every thing 
right when she came back again at the end of 
the Festival week. Mrs. Bratchet went on, how- 
ever, without waiting for note or comment : 

“I’ve seed summut up this good bit past. 
Night afore last, when she come back from 
the music, she was pretty nigh broke down — 
wouldn’t touch her vittles, nor nought o’ that 
sort; and she out with it at last — she’were dis- 
appointed because madame as had fixed for 
her to wait at the door had gone away, and 
forgotten all about her, as it’s like enough too, 

| and her that sort. And she never got a bit 
1 o’ rest all night; and fidgeting and tossing 
about, and up and down, up and down, while 
you might have thought she were doing it for 
| a wager ; and so I told her she must stop in 
her bed i’ the morning, or she wouldn’t be fit 
for nothing ; and when Gurtha come to fetch 
me here, I fettled every thing up tidy and 
clean, and give her her breakfast, and telled 
her where the bit o’ cold meat was, and every 
thing she wanted ; and then I left her, as there 
wasn’t no more I could do. And when I went 
back i’ the afternoon to see if Patch had took 
, the baskets she warn’t there, only a message as 
some one had brought, to say madame wanted 


her, and I needn’t be afraid if she didn’t come 
back for a good bit — maybe not while night.” 

“Well,” said Jean, “there was no harm in 
that. I believe Madame Fortebracchio is very 
good to her.” 

“No, Miss Jean, not a bit o’ harm ; but wait 
while I get to the far end on it, and then see 
if things don’t start turning theirselves round. 
It were all right. If madame wanted to keep 
her, I’d no call to go again’ it; though I’m not 
one, Miss Jean, no, nor never was, as could see 
any sense in going among one’s betters. I say 
if you belong to a poor sort, keep to ’em, only 
do your duty by ’em — but that’s neither here 
nor there. And then, when I see Patch last 
night, as I was set minding the shop, I give 
her a message as she should go to the ‘ Crux- 
borough Arms,’ and tell Gretchen she needn’t 
hurry herself about coming back, for things 
was all square at home ; and I thought I could 
maybe stop with the missis more convenient if 
the place were locked up.” 

“And I suppose, when you went this morn- 
ing, you found she had taken you at your word, 
and not come back — was that it?” said Jean, 
who knew that good Mrs. Bratchet was some- 
times a little bit “touchy,” if she did not re- 
ceive due consideration from people whom she 
befriended. 

“ Wait a bit, miss. As I w r as agoing to say, 
I opened the house out this morning, and the 
neighbors told me there’d never been no word 
nor nothing ; and then I thought I’d best go 
myself and make things right ; for, you sec, 
there’s no reckoning on Patch, whether she 
will or whether she won’t, at such like times 
as these ; so off I goes to the ‘ Cruxborough 
Arms,’ and I asked to see the young woman 
as madame. had sent for to sing to her night 
afore last ; and the waiter he knowed me well 
enough, for it’s many a basket of linen I’ve 
taken to that there place — yes, and hopes to 
take ’em again, if the Lord spare me ; and af- 
ter a bit he comes back, and he says the young 
woman was away, but madame wouldn’t object 
seeing me, if I liked to walk up stairs. No, 
nor hasn’t no need to, thinks I, for there isn’t 
a woman in Cruxborough lays herself out more 
nor what I do to keep myself respectable ; so 
I goes up, and madame she were set there in 
her big chair by the fire, wi’ a grand scarlet 
gownd on, and white fur round it, and a lace 
cap, as there never was a beautifuller, bit o’ 
lace corned into this place, no, not if it was 
Mrs. Ballinger herself, and I’m a woman that 
knows good lace when I see it. And she 
stared at me, did madame, as if I’d been a 
mawkin, for all I’d got my clean lilac print 
on, and my bonnet as I goes to the means in 
reg'lar of a Sunday ; and she axed me was I 
the person as took in washing, and I says to 
her yes, and drops my courtesy, for I know 
what’s proper to the quality, let ’em be what 
they may ; and then she said as there wasn’t 
no need to trouble myself no more about the 
young lady, for she had settled it herself, and 


100 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


she had gone to London with the what’s-his- 
name, and then they was going to furrin parts, 
for her to get her laming in music.” 

“Not gone, Mrs. Bratchet,” said Jean, qui- 
etly. The good woman, in her excitement, 
was evidently putting possibilities for facts. 
“Not gone — only, perhaps, likely to go!” , 

Mrs. Bratchet gave her worthy head just so 
much of a toss as was consistent with church 
membership. 

“You may take the words out of my mouth, 
Miss Jean, if you like ; not as I’m a woman 
that often speaks before I’ve a call to, or when 
it isn’t to profit, but madame said she’d gone 
to London last night, and was to stop at her 
house while she went to ’em. And then I up 
and I says, 4 What, ma’am, and never so much 
as a message, nor nothing of the sort, and her 
coming and going like my own bom child, as 
you may say, this nearly four months past, and 
never a cross word to her, no, nor never should, 
not while she began it herself ; for if nobody 
says it of me, I’ll say it for myself, as there 
isn’t a peacefuller woman in Cruxborough town 
than what I am.’ And then, madame, when 
she saw I was getting kind o’ riled, she give 
herself a twist, and she said something about 
people not knowing their own places ; and no, 
there wasn’t no more message, only the young 
lady was sorry to leave her friends on a sud- 
den ; and if there had been any debts, or ought 
of that sort, she would make ’em straight with 
the greatest of pleasure, because it had been 
her own doings for the young lady to go. And 
with that, Miss Jean,” continued Mrs. Brat- 
chet, gathering up more enei'gy as her story 
reached its climax — “with that she out with 
her purse, and a lot of golden sovereigns — as 
many as I could earn in a twelvemonth, slaving 
as there isn’t one in a thousand does it more 
nor what I do — and pushes ’em at me, and tells 
me to pick what’s my own. But I says, 4 No, 
thank you, madame;’ I says, ‘it isn’t money 
as does it, when you’ve been a mother to ’em, 
and fed ’em, and looked after ’em, and prayed 
for ’em, so as you couldn’t have wrestled ear- 
nester, no, not if they’d been your own flesh 
and blood; and if that’s the way it’s to end,’ 
says 1, 4 it isn’t debt as I’m here to say nothing 
about.’ And with that I left her, for a proud 
piece as she is, and her staring at me out of 
the room, as if she’d never seed a respectable 
. woman afore. 

“Yes, Miss Jean, you may ketch up your 
breath, for such-like goings on is enough to give 
any body a turn. I axed the waiter a bit more 
when I came down stairs, and he said they 
went off in a cab last night, and the gentleman 
took that care of her you might ha’ thought 
she were made o’ glass, and happed her up 
with his own hands, and helped her in and 
every thing ; and madame give her a kiss, and 
watched her off, and he said she looked sort 
o’ scared, as well she might, to go that sort of 
way, as if she’d been a heathen ; she couldn’t 
have done it no hard-hearteder. And so that’s 


the end of my story, and you can take the 
change out of it which way you like. And 
now I think I’ll go and mind the shop a bit, 
for it’ll be summut to keep me from fretting. 
My old man— bless him! — used to say it’s a 
good plaster for a sore heart is a busy pair of 
hands, and I don’t think there was ever a truer 
word spoke.” 

And Mrs. Bratchet, wiping a tear out of her 
eye, went away. She had loved the little Ger- 
man girl very much. 


CHAPTER XL. 

Por a long time Jean sat with bowed head 
and folded hands in the little parlor where 
Mrs. Bratchet had left her. So, then, this 
was the end of all ; forgetfulness and indiffer- 
ence. The young lady was very sorry to leave 
her friends without saying good-bye to them. 
Nothing more than that. 

It had been such a pleasant thought, Gret- 
chen’s coming to them to be one of themselves 
— a daughter and a sister in that quiet home. 

She had pictured so often the richer life which 
might be in store for Roger when, after these . 
years of hard work, he went forth, with the 
blue-eved peasant girl for his wife, to make his 
own home and win his own place in the world. 

She wished no more than that for him. She 
felt that he could reach no height which Gret-^ 
chen’s sweet soul wouldSnot grace;, he could 
give her no honor, if honor cathe, which she 
would not wear with a true woman’s simplicity. 
Knowing each other, trusting each other, hav- 
ing waited and worked together through these 
patient years, how fair their life would be at 
last ! how firmly their love rooted in the deep 
foundation of these early memories ! And then 
in fancy she had looked on to the coming time 
when she, for whom no other home waited, who 
could never feel kiss of husband or child upon 
her lips, should be left alone with their mother, 
to rest during the quiet afternoon of life, dwell- 
ing content and at peace under the shelter of 
the holy thoughts whose seeds she had sown, 
and whose tender buds she had watered with 
many a tear in this, her youth time. She had 
learned to think quite calmly now of a whole 
long life in which she should be dearest, best 
to none ; in which all joy that could come to ’ 
her must come from self-forgetfulness ; in which 
the slow years, as they journeyed on, must 
needs continually narrow the circle of her 
earthly hope, instead of bringing into it fresh 
interest. Roger’s success was the one door 
which opened earthward for her. In the re- 
flected light of his happiness she*sbould find 
her own. And now what waited for him ? 

Yet she tried not to judge harshly. Jean 
Monkeston was a generous woman. She was 
willing that people should be happy in their 
own way. She did not build houses for her 
friends, and then turn bitter if they refused to 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


101 


live in them. Gretchen had repaid her love ! 
j! with indifference, but still who should blame 
I the girl for taking her life into her own hands ? 
i What was there, in their quiet, straitened sur- 
j roundings, to satisfy a nature rich, warmly col- 
; ored, like hers? To take her from the mea- 
I gre, unadorned homeliness of Mrs. Bratchet’s 
j cottage, or the dull daily round of toil at the 
Woolsthorpe works, and make her one of them- 
selves, in a home almost luxurious by contrast 
with the one she left, might have been a kind- 
ness. To insist upon keeping her there after 
a brighter future had opened before her, or to 
murmur that she had turned away from them 
when what she had yearned for all her life was 
offered to her, would have shown small love. 

And yet, and yet, never a word of farewell — 
not even a moment in which to say what might 
have been. But she would surely write to them? 
She might have gone away in haste, confused, 
excited. When she was quiet again she would 
remember. She could not let every thing end 
in that blank silence. They would wait, they 
would trust, and in the end all would yet be 
well. 

Roger came in. He looked grave and sad ; 
but that was for their mother’s sake, Jean 
thought, and for the night of anxious watching 
they had spent. 

“ Mother sleeps. I think she must be bet- 
ter ; but Gretchen does not come.” 

v “No, Roger ” — Jean tried to speak as if her 
absence were only a matter of course — “we 
need not expect her any more now. Mrs. 
Bratchet has just been to the hotel to inquire 
about her, and she has gone to London with 
Signor Notturino. She will stay there for 
some time, and then go to Naples. Madame 
Fortebracchio said if there were any debts she 
would pay them.” 

“Did she ?” said Roger, bitterly. “She 
must be a rich woman, then.” 

“No, Roger, it may not be that. We must 
not judge as if we knew every thing. She left 
word she was sorry to go away without saying 
good-bye to any one, so most likely she will 
write to us and explain. She knows where we 
are. I am sure she will not forget.” 

“ No and Roger came a little closer to his 
sister. “ I did not tell you all last night when 
I came home. I asked to see her, and she re- 
fused; she just sent a message to say that she 
was busy. Now she is gone, we shall hear of 
her no more. Jean, it is over !” 

Roger took his sister’s hand; they looked 
very earnestly for a while into each other’s 
faces, but spoke never a word. Then he went 
back again to his mother’s room. 

Jean would not follow him. Something told 
her that nowhere could he face this, his first 
great sorrow, so well as there, close by that 
elder, holier mother-love which had never fail- 
ed, and never would fail him, even to the end. 

Late in the afternoon, when the shadows 
were creeping up, and the bells were ringing 
merrily out to bid the Festival farewell, Roger 


still watched there. Those sad, slow hours 
were doing for him the* work of years. It was 
the valley of the shadow of death through 
which he passed ; and what death is so hope- 
less as the death of trust ? Over what other 
should one weep such unavailing tears ? 

By-and-by Mrs. Monkcston reached out her 
hand to him. 

“ Roger!” 

“Yes, mother, I am here.” 

“ Take care of your sister Jean ; she will 
have no one but you.” 

Roger leaned his head down upon the pil- 
low, close to his mother’s white cheek. 

“You need not have said that, mother; we 
will both of us be good to her always.” 

And then Mrs. Monkeston seemed to sleep 
again, and all was so still, only the ringing of 
the Minster bells to break the calm, and they 
seemed to ring from another world. 

Jean came in. Something in their mother’s 
face startled her. It was like the low, solemn 
light of the setting sun. 

“Roger,” she said, sharply, “send Gurtha 
for Mr. Balmain.” 

But before he could come there was no fur- 
ther need for him. Mrs. Monkeston was dead. 
The grand, dutiful life into which so little that 
the world calls success ever came had done its 
work. The patient soul, which had lacked so 
much, yet never cried out over that lack, knew 
fullness of life now. For her children kneeling 
by her side, the watching and the waiting and 
the pain. For her henceforth the calm on-go- 
ing of the eternal years. 

One hour later the brother and sister stood 
together. in the little room below. That mighty 
presence, whose coming and whose going rises 
like a solemn landmark over all other days, 
stdbd beside them now. 

Roger drew his sister tenderly to him. 

“Jean, I have no one but you.” 

And Jean, holding his hand fast, but speak- 
ing no word, knew that in his heart he was lay- 
ing the rosemary of remembrance upon two 
dead faces. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

There was stillness in the little house at 
Bishop’s Lane end; that strange stillness 
which comes when the actual, visible presence 
of death has been removed. They had taken 
Mrs. Monkeston away to bury her by her hus- 
band’s side in the old church-yard at the Wil- 
lowmarshes — taken her with but little funeral 
pomp and circumstance ; for love, which reach- 
es out into the other life, needs not such things. 
And now the brother and sister sat together, 
looking forth into the gray dawnlight of their 
quiet future. 

Mrs. Bratchet had come to help. She and 
Gurtha were washing up and putting away in 
the kitchen. It Avas like that other day, more 
than ten years before, when Ralph Monkeston 


102 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


had been carried to his burial ; only that now, 
instead of the sunny pleasantness of the old 
farm-garden, the women looked out upon the 
gray Minster towers of Cruxborough ; and for 
the little children who loitered over their “bo- 
longe” on the grass-plot outside, two mourn- 
ers, one with a man’s gravity, the other with a 
woman’s tenderness, remembered their dead. 

‘‘There’s been a vast o’ change, honey,” 
said Mrs. Bratchet, “since you and me did 
this work afore in yon place at the Willow- 
marshes. The missis has had a rough carry- 
ing-on, but she’s safe landed now.” 

“Ay, please the Lord we go as quiet at the 
last, I wouldn’t ask no more. There’s nought 
like a good conscience to die upon. Miss 
Jean bears up wonderful ; that’s always the 
way with the women. She goes about as mild 
and quiet-like, with never a breaking-out or 
flinging up the Almighty’s ways at him, as she’s 
a pattern to the believers.” 

“I don’t see as Mr. Roger takes it much 
different, for that matter,” said Mrs. Bratchet, 
who always liked to put in a word for the 
young man. “ He couldn’t bear it more prop- 
er not if he were a joined member.” 

“ Maybe it’s a word in season to him. He’s 
stood need of one this good bit past, and him 
took up with them musicianing ways so as he’d 
never no thought for nothing else. I've said 
I’d let on to him as such-like things wasn’t to 
profit, but a better ’n me has done it now.” 

“It were that young woman set him on a 
good deal. “There’s no telling what she 
might ha’ done with him, if she hadn’t took 
herself off that way, as I can’t square it up to 
myself yet — no, nor ever shall. I’m an old 
woman, but I’ve got my two eyes, for all that ; 
and it wasn’t for nothing Master Roger come 
home with her night after night from thfcm 
there practicings. He’s none the -young man 
to do that way when he -doesn’t mean any 
thing. I’d used to think it would ha’ been 
good thing for ’em both, for young people is 
best settled ; and there was a time when she 
would ha’ made him as good a wife as ever 
stepped, and Mrs. Monkeston, bless her ! never 
the Avoman to look to high things for her chil- 
der. But it’s a mercy noAV he didn’t get her. 
I’ll never trusten fair looks and pleasant ways 
again — no, not while I’m a living Avoman.” 

“Ay,” said Gurtha, who, being someAvhat 
ill-favored herself, liked a side hit at beauty, 
“I never set much store myself by them pink- 
and-Avhite Avenches as looks up into your face 
like lambs, and makes believe they don’t knoAV 
nothing. Mostly they knoAvs a vast more nor 
Avhat you might think they do. They’re as 
sly as sly, for all their meek behaviors. You 
and me never set ourselves up Avith them sort 
of ay ays, Mrs. Bratchet.” 

“Well, maybe not,” said Mrs. Bratchet, 
Avith a private mental reservation for the days, 
more than forty years back noAV, when she Avas 
as fond of a floAvered print as any body, and 
perhaps Avon a little of her old man’s love Avith 


that fondness, too. “ I’ve heard say plain faces 
goes easiest to heaven, but I could almost have 
took my Bible oath she Avere set that road, for 
such modest Avays as she had with her, and 
never setting herself off to be stared at, as it’s 
such a many of ’em does it nowadays. I reckon 
I shall have to look up a bit o’ fresh Avashing, 
unless I put a paper in the AvindoAv for a lodger, 
which I don’t much mind, being, as they most- 
ly are, a queer sort. I don’t misdoubt but poor 
Dan’l’s wife, as Patch lodged with, thinks the 
same. You haven’t, maybe, heard tell of that, 
have you?” 

Gurtha had not, and signified her Avillingness 
to be made Aviso. Mrs. Bratchet put her dish- 
cloth on one side, such deference being the 
least that could be paid to a story so impor- 
tant as the one she Avas going to relate ; and 
she seated herself by the fire, and crossed her 
arms, and paused for a moment, with the grave 
leisureliness of a Avoman Avho knows she has 
something to say. 

“ She come to me just a Aveek ago this A'ery 
night, as I Avere set minding the shop, after the 
poor missis Avas took for her death, and she 
says to me, ‘ Mrs. Bratchet,’ says she, ‘here’s 
the money;’ for you knoAV she’d been taking 
home a feAv o’ clothes, as she oft did it Avhen 
I Avas that throng I couldn’t see to ’em myself; 
and says I to her, ‘Never heed the bit o’ money 
Avhile morning, honey,’ for I OAved her a matter 
of a shilling or tAvo myself, and I thought avc 
Avould settle all up at once ; and I axed her 
to go and take a message for me to the ‘Crux- 
borough Arms,’ and she off, and I’ve never set 
eyes on her since, no, nor eA*er shall, to my 
thinking, nor the money neither, for she’s took 
off someAvheres, and them as AA'ants her may 
find her if they can.” 

“ LaAV, Mrs. Bratchet, you don’t go for to say 
it!” And noAV Gurtha left her domestic avo- 
cations too, for Patch’s mysterious disappear- 
ance required the undivided attention of them 
both. 

“That’s right, honey, put your work by a 
bit,” said Mrs. Bratchet, “and let’s have our 
talk comfortable. There’ll be time enough to 
side things Avhen I’ve got you told. Well, I 
looked for her to come next morning, but there 
Avas never no signs of it, and then, thinks I, 
I’ll Avait Avhile the Festival’s over — she’s al- 
Avays on the loose, is Patch, Avhen there’s a bit 
o’ music going ; and then, you see, the poor 
missis being took and that, put it out of my 
head, and I never thought no more about it 
Avhile last night, and then I says to myself, 
Avhen she didn’t come, ‘I’ll go to Dan’l’s Avife, 
and see what’s matter,’ for I was feared she 
might ha’ fallen ill, and be proAvling round i’ 
the dark, like a Avild thing, and never taking 
no heed of cold, nor damp, nor nothing. So 
I goes to Mrs. Oiler right aAvay, and she said 
Patch had took off a week afore, same train 
Dan’l goes guard with. She Avent after it 
Avhile as far as the shunting, and begged and 
prayed him to let her in, Avhile he couldn’t 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


103 












frame to say her nay. And that scared, he 
said, she looked, you might ha’ thought she 
was fleeing the police, and like enough, too, 
with my fifteen-and-sixpence in her pocket, as 
she knows I slave hard enough for every penny 
I can addle, the baggage ! It’s a good thing 
she didn’t go to the Residence and all, for it’s 
well on to a pound a week I take there when 
the family’s in, and she’d have got it as sure as 
a gun !” 

Gurtha listened open-mouthed, with that 
keen appetence which, even in the best regu- 
lated minds, feeds with a sort of relish on the 
evil doings of other people, and finds the diet 
assimilate comfortably, too. 

“Well, to think! But she’s a furriner, and 
I never had no trust in ’em. Folks is best in 
their own country. I can’t abide ’em coming 
here with their odd ways, and turning their 
words upside down while there isn’t a bit of 
sense to get hold of. If they’ve ought to say, 
why don’t they say it plain, and then I’ll be- 
lieve them, but not till. Such rubbish back- 
nrdsing and forradsing when plain English ’ud 
do it a vast better. And the fifteen-and-six- 
pence gone, too. Law ! Mrs. Bratchet, but if 
I was you I’d take it out of her someways.” 

“ Nay, honey, it’s no use sending good money 
after bad. I must make shift to do without that 
check shawl I were laying up for this Chresamus. 
It’s the music’s done it, I’ll warrant. Patch 
were allcrs a fidget when there was a bit of 
any thing going, but never so bad as this time. 
It lies strong upon my mind as she once addled 
her living that way, and it kind o’ sticks to her. 
You know she was singing afore his house when 
old Hiram seed her and took her in.” 

That mention of old Hiram reminded Mrs. 
Bratchet of another subject which she had 
been intending for some weeks to talk over 
with Gurtha. She had had it on her mind 
ever since that conversation with Patch over 
the ironing-board, but a convenient season 
had never occurred for the ventilation of it 
until now. 

“I reckon the shop ’ll be give up,” she be- 
gan, bv way of introduction. “Miss Jean, 
bless her! ain’t got no strength to mind it; 
and maybe it’ll happen as there’s a bit of 
something put by for her to turn round upon.” 

“ I don’t know nothing about that,” said 
Gurtha, stiffly ; “ I never ask no questions. 
But it don’t look much like any thing put by, 
when Miss Jean’s set from morning to night 
over that there carving, scarce ever giving her- 
self a bit of rest, and never no company, nor 
a sixpence spent but what there’s a need to. 
It don’t make no difference to me, though ; I 
mean to stay with ’em. It’s been a good home 
to me, and I’ll none turn my back of it now the 
missis is gone. I’d make shift to mind the shop 
myself, half days, afore it should be give up, if 
Miss Jean stands need of it.” 

“Ay, honey, and I’d take the t’other half 
when I could get the washing cleared out time 
enough. But there is them that says Mrs. 


Monkeston oughtn’t to be so bad off as what 
she is. It were Patch herself t died me so, and 
Patch isn’t a woman to let her tongue loose 
when there’s a call to keep it still ; I will say 
that for her, for all she did ine a bad turn about 
the money. You know she were living servant 
to old Hiram when he died, and she told me 
that he’d been drinking pretty fairish one night 
about a week afore, and when she come in to 
take away, he said he’d been making it up to 
Ralph Monkeston as much as money could do 
it, and Mr. Ballinger had a say in it some way. 
And I telled her it were all a make-up, for 
there’s many a man does a good turn when lie’s 
in his cups, and it never comes to nothing more. 
But she stuck to it as she was right, and she 
wouldn’t have it but, what the money was put 
out that way. And then, says I, ‘ I’ll ask the 
missis; for there's nought like opening a tiling 
out right away when you want to see to the 
end of it. And the missis she said it were all 
a mistake, and she kind o’ made me understand, 
as you know she had that sort of way with her, 
as I shouldn’t meddle in it no more, which I 
didn’t ; not but what I had my own thoughts 
all the same, as it stands to reason I couldn’t 
stop ’em. And if the missis, bless her, didn’t 
get it, I’d like to know who did — that’s all.” 

“ He’s kep’ it from her, Mrs. Bratchet, that’s 
what he’s done, I lay any thing. And a likely 
man for it, too, by what people say, for you 
don’t go nowhere but what you hear ’em won- 
dering where the money comes from, and them 
living like princes, as they’ve been doing it ever 
since the young lady got up, and their dinners 
and their parties and their dances. I’d thank 
any body to tell me what they do it with, that’s 
all. And what for did they stop coming of a 
sudden after the missis got settled here if there 
wasn’t summut wrong? and them feeding their- 
selves as they’d used to at the farm, and never 
went away but what they took any thing as 
come handy for the missis to give ’em. It’s 
here, Mrs. Bratchet, if you and me lives long 
enough, I lay we’ll find out it’s a pool as don’t 
do to be stirred down to the bottom. While 
things is kep’ quiet, they go easy, but once give 
’em a shake, and you’ll see. 

“And now I reckon we’d best finish that 
there washing-up. Miss Jean likes the kitchen 
cleared afore night, and it’s getting on for that.” 


CHAPTER XLII. 

The soft, silent wing of death, closing over 
Roger and Jean Monkeston, kept them for a 
while in a solitude into which the busy tongue 
of gossip could not pierce ; but with the drawn- 
tip blinds other light than that of the sun en- 
tered. 

Kind little Mr. Grant was the first to come, 
with some more definite information about Gret- 
chen than Mrs. Bratchet, turbulent and indig- 
nant, had been able to gather. Madame had 


104 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


sent for him the day before she left Cruxbor- 
ough, and had explained every thing to him 
satisfactorily ; at least, so far as any thing could 
be satisfactory in which, after all was said and 
done, there still remained that quite unexplain- 
able residuum of selfish indifference on Gret- 
chen’s part. 

It was such a very fine opening for the young 
girl, she said — such a very fine opening ; and 
as the Signor Notturino had been willing to 
take all the trouble into his own hands, even 
also to bear the expense of her journey to Na- 
ples, and to superintend her musical education 
there, it seemed a pity to let the opportunity 
slip ; though madame was quite ready to allow 
that the sudden departure must have seemed 
strange to her friends. But Gretchen had left 
kind remembrances and regrets, especially for 
the excellent Kapellmeister, who had been the 
first to take notice of her ; and she hoped at 
some future period to be able to inform him of 
her success in the art to which she had devoted 
herself. 

“It doesn’t ring true somehow,” said Mr. 
Grant, giving himself a little impatient shake 
when he had ended his account of the inter- 
view with Madame Fortebracchio. “I’m afraid 
I have been deceived in Gretchen Muller, un- 
less there has been any motive in hurrying her 
aw r ay so suddenly. They may want to get her 
entirely out of our handstand then they would 
make an agreement with her that whatever she 
earned afterward should be shared with them. 
I believe that is often the way with these young 
singers, who are picked up promiscuously, and 
educated at the expense of patrons. I could 
have taught her plenty more ipyself, though, be- 
fore she needed to go to Naples. Indeed, she 
might have had a very good position in the En- 
glish musical world without ever going there at 
all.” 

“I suppose we must let her go,” said Jean, 
who did not care to plunge poor Gretchen still 
further into disgrace by telling how she had al- 
ready behaved to them. “ She has chosen her’ 
own way, or, at any rate, has had it chosen for 
her, which does not always come to the same 
thing. I dare say madame does not wish any 
further communication.” 

“No, I don’t think that, for she gave me her 
London address, and seemed quite willing that 
any of us should write. I can’t say I like hav- 
ing my little pupil taken out of my hands in 
this way. I had no idea, when I brought her 
up to be smiled upon by the prima donna , that 
things would go on at such railway speed. But 
she will probably stay in town two or three 
months before they take her on to Naples ; and 
I have been thinking, Miss Monkeston, that 
perhaps you would write to her. She may feel 
that she has behaved rather queerly to us all, 
and so doesn’t like to put herself in our way 
again — at least, that is how I should feel if I 
had done the same thing. Should you mind 
the trouble? I know she always thought a 
great deal about you, and I really should very 


much like to know how things arc going with 
her.” 

Jean promised. Next day she wrote a long 
letter to Gretchen. She made no reference to 
the cold message which Roger had received. 
Possibly there might have been some misunder- 
standing even in that. She only assumed that 
the girl had gone away in great haste ; and she j 
therefore expressed neither surprise nor offense, ^ 
only the sorrow which they felt at losing her. 
Then she told the short and sad story of their 
mother’s death — madame with the good, grave 
face, whom Gretchen had loved so much. That 
surely w r ould win some word of tender regret 
in reply, even if the living had ceased now to 
be much cared for. 

The letter was duly received by madame, 
who of course concluded that it should be for- • 
warded to Gretchen’s home in Stuttgart, and 
gave it to the Signor Notturino, who had wish- 
ed to be informed of any letters that might 
come to her, for that purpose. He took it 
away, read it, and burned it. Some day, when 
he had satisfied himself that Patch was safely 
out of the way, he meant to go to Stuttgart, 
and look upon the little blue-eyed peasant girl 
again. It were as well, therefore, she should 
not be troubled with remembrances from these 
other “friends whom I love.” 

“ I am afraid we must give it up now,” said 
Mr. Grant, when, after many days, Jean’s letter 
still remained unanswered. “It is not what I 
should have thought of little Gretchen Muller, 
but it will teach me a lesson not to be quite so 
ready again in taking up people who seem to 
want some one to help them. I won’t put my- 
self in the way of being treated like this easily 
another time.” 

“Nay, Mr. Grant,” said Jean, “it is for art 
that you do it. If Gretchen is to be -a great 
singer, we must let her go — it is better so. You ; 
have helped her to that.” 

“Yes, and helped her to forget us all; so 
she has lost as much in her affections as she 
has gained in her art. Some of these days, I 
suppose she will be coming back to us with as 
many airs as madame herself, and we shall have 
her bowing in white satin and diamonds to an 
admiring public. Ah ! well, catch me^helping 
to applaud, that’s all. I’ll do the hissing with 
a great deal more good-will.” 

And Mr. Grant bustled aw’ay, pulling at his 
gray whiskers, as he ahvays did when he was in 
a bad temper. 

Jean thought long and earnestly after he had 
gone. Yes, it w r as too true now; they must 
give her up. Yet the more she thought of it, 
the more it seemed unlike Gretchen. She re- 
membered the morning — it was only a month 
ago, but it seemed much more like a year — 
when the little German girl had come to them 
to be ready for the Festival, and they had sat 
together in her own little room up stairs, and 
she had talked to Gretchen about coming to 
live with them. And the girl’s face had bright- 
ened up so at the thought, her whole heart seem- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


cd to meet it so joyously. There had been no 
holding back, no reserve of half uncertainty. 
And Gretchen could not counterfeit. Those 
clear blue eyes of hers told all the truth. 
That innocent face was the very mirror of her 
thoughts. And just one day later she was gone 
— gone without a word or a message — gone so 
far from them that even the sad story of death 
and sorrow and remembrance could not win so 
much as one word of reply from her when she 
heard it. And this was Gretchen Muller — 
Gretchen, whom Roger loved, upon whom he 
had set his hope, whom he thought one day to 
have called by the sweet name of wife. 

“But he will arise and forget,” said Jean to 
herself, as she looked out into brighter years 
for him ; years in which, since this peasant girl 
loved him not, he should win for himself some 
white-handed bride, and set her by his side 
among the great people who should one day 
give him place. “He will arise and forget.” 

And so it might seem he did ; for in those 
long winter evenings which came and went af- 
ter Mrs. Monkeston’s death there was never 
any word spoken of Gretchen. She seemed 
farther from them, much farther now, than the 
mother who, in her strong, faithful love, could 
never, living or dying, be lost. Bravely, stead- 
ily, Roger worked on, winning much praise 
from his friend and master. And if his face 
looked sometimes a little sterner than usual, it 
was the thought of his mother which cast a 
shadow there. How should he smile, and the 
grass not green upon her grave ? 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

Mr. Arncliffe did his business in London, 
read his paper before the Ro} r al Society, went 
to Paris on some affairs connected with the 
great telescope, was made a corresponding 
member of the Academy there, returned to Lon- 
don, dipped into half a dozen scientific gather- 
ings, met a few lords and dukes who had lean- 
ings in his own directions, had two or three 
fresh letters added to the train which already 
followed his name, and then came back to Crux- 
borough to subside into the insignificance which 
that most discerning of cities had long ago in- 
dicated as his portion. 

He spent one quiet evening with Jean and 
Roger, though, before he took to work again in 
the little office. People were mistaken who 
thought Matthew Arncliffe a man of science, 
and nothing more than that. Far down in the 
heart of him there lay a true sympathy for those 
who suffered — sympathy which could struggle 
sometimes into most tender speech, or, failing 
that, tell itself in deeds of kindly helpfulness. 
The old astronomer was something like one of 
those double stars which he was so fond of ob- 
serving through his big telescope — apparently 
a glittering point of light, nothing more than 
that, but resolving itself, for those who could 


105 

come near enough to it, into a rich, warm glow 
of color, deep, vivid, intense. 

After that quiet evening he sat and thought 
for a long time. Something must be done now 
for Jean. She must not go on keeping that 
little shop in the Bishop’s Lane end. lie must 
have a talk with Roger about it, and about that 
other affair, too, which had been puzzling him 
so ever since his journey to London. 

That conversation which he had overheard 
in the railway - carriage, what did it mean ? 
Had old Hiram Armstrong ever done any thing 
for the Monkestons ? From what his nephew 
had said, and said, too, without any sort of 
mincing of the matter, there had been a com- 
pensation on the old man’s part for some injury 
which he was supposed to have done to Ralph 
Monkeston ; and this compensation, it appear- 
ed, took the form of a provision for Roger, 
sufficient to meet the expenses of his education, 
and afterward to place him out in some suita- 
ble profession. Now Mr. Arncliffe knew well 
enough, both from what Dr. Boniface had told 
him, and from his conversations with Mrs. 
Monkeston, that Roger’s education had been 
supplied to him without cost in the cathedral 
song-school ; and he knew well enough, too, 
that not a penny had ever been paid to himself 
in the shape of premium for the lad. What 
had become of it, then ? From what he had 
seen of Mrs. Monkeston, he did not think she 
was the sort of woman to make herself seem 
poorer than she really was, in order to squeeze 
a little extra charity out of those who were will- 
ing to help her. And yet, when he made that 
offer of taking Roger free of expense, why had 
she not said that a provision for that purpose 
had already been made for him? She was 
gone, poor woman, and he would not judge 
her harshly ; but still, if the thing really were 
so, it would have been altogether nobler of her 
to have admitted it. It was obtaining money 
under false pretenses to trade upon a poverty 
that really did not exist ; and Mrs. Monkeston 
was the last woman whom he would have sus- 
pected of such a meanness. 

As for Roger, it was not his fault. Likely 
enough he knew nothing about it. If the mon- 
ey had been given into his mother’s hands for 
one purpose, and she, finding that purpose could 
be equally well answered by the generosity of 
a second friend, had put it into the business, or 
laid it by as a possible provision for the other 
child, she would not be likely to say any thing 
about it. But still the matter ought to be clear- 
ed up, especially now that Roger’s help in the 
Woolsthorpe works. was so valuable, and that 
the time had come for his position there to be 
permanently raised. If the money were there, 
the disposition of affairs consequent upon Mrs. 
Monkeston’s death would tyring it to light, and 
then nothing more should be done for Roger 
until that sum had been invested for the bene- 
fit of his sister. Jean once made secure from 
want, then the other question of salary or part- 
nership might be discussed. 


10G 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


Accordingly, Mr. ArncliflFe sent for the young 
man to come to him in the little inner office 
one evening, after the men had left. 

“Clear out those wheels,” he said, cheerily, 
as Roger came in, “and make a place for your- 
self. I want to have a bit of talk with you. 
I thought we had better be to ourselves here, 
or I would have come over to Bishop’s Lane. 
You’ve nothing particular going on to-night, I 
hope.” 

“No, sir,” said Roger, taking his seat in the 
place previously occupied by the dismembered 
portions of a chronometer. “I am quite at lib- 
erty for any thing you may want me for.” 

“ Calculations, most likely,” thought Roger. 
This great telescope took as much getting 
through as an act of Parliament. And the 
grinding of the huge lenses was not even begun 
yet. But Mr. Arncliffe’s opening words put 
him on a different track. 

“Now, Roger, you and I have gone along 
smoothly enough for the last eleven years, and 
I’m not the man to make light of what you’ve 
done, or what is in you to do yet. I don’t want 
to cheapen your abilities in order to get more 
work out of you for less money.” 

“ You have never done that yet, sir,” said 
Roger, the color rising in his grave, thoughtful 
young face. “ You have always given me credit 
for as much as ever I deserved.” 

“Well, well, I've only done my duty, then, 
that’s all. And I told you, you know, some 
months ago, when we got that order from 
Paris placed to the works, that I would take 
you as far as you could go in this sort of thing. 
Now, it didn’t occur to me then, but I’m bound 
to say it has occurred to me since, that perhaps 
you may be able to go farther than I can take 
you — eh ?” 

“I’ll go as far as I can, sir,” said Roger, 
“but I shall never go beyond you ; I am quite 
sure of that.” 

“ Are you ? Well, all I can say is this — you 
are very much further now than I was twenty 
years ago ; and if you keep on doing your best 
— mind, I say doing your best— you’ll stand in 
twenty years’ time where I shall never reach. 
That’s about the truth of it. But before we 
say any thing more about salary, and that sort 
of thing, there’s one little matter I want to talk 
over with you. It’s no use making any bones 
about it ; but I dare say you know well enough 
I took.you in here without any premium, which 
isn’t a thing I generally do ; for the sort of 
training a lad gets under my care isn’t what 
many men in England could give him.” 

“ I know that, sir,” said Roger. “ My moth- 
er often told me how good you had been to take 
me free of expense.” 

“She did, eh? Ah! well, I didn't know — 
thought perhaps it might be different. It’s all 
right, then, so far. I did it because I thought 
you couldn’t afford the couple of hundred 
pounds or so that it would have cost in a reg- 
ular way. And I’ve never repented it since, 
Roger, never.” 


“ And you never shall, sir, if I can help it.” 

“ I don’t suppose I shall. And now I’ve 
been thinking I should like to give you a share 
in the concern, so that you may feel you belong 
to it, in a manner; and when any thing hap- 
pens to me, for I’m getting an old man now, I 
shall feel that the reputation of the place will be 
kept up. But 1 happened to hear of something 
the other day that staggered me a little, and I 
may as well out with it at once. When I was 
going up to London to read that paper of mine, 
Armstrong, of Wastewood, was in the same 
carriage, talking to another gentleman. They 
neither of them knew who I was, and I didn’t 
care for their talk at first; but when he hears 
his own name mentioned a man has a right to 
listen, and that’s what I did.” 

“Yes, sir,” said Roger, as Mr. Arncliffe 
looked keenly at him. But the clear, honest 
eyes never faltered in their straightforward, 
glance, and Mr. Arncliffe went on : 

“Armstrong said that his uncle, old Hiram, 
of Wastewood, paid down a sum of money, as 
compensation for an injury of some sort that he 
had done to your father, and the money was in- 
tended for your education and for any premium 
which might be required for putting you out in 
life. Then the other man, whoever he might 
be, said he had been very much surprised when 
Mrs. Monkeston, whom he seemed to know 
something about — traveler in small wares, or 
something of that sort — Avhen Mrs. Monkeston 
articled you to me, because a concern like this 
requires a good deal of capital to carry it on ; 
but if the money had been provided for you, 
why, that explained it.” 

Again that keen look at Roger, met again 
bv the same clear, conscious truthfulness. 

“Now, Roger, you know as well as I do, it 
seems, that never a penny came to me in the 
way of premium or any other way. What I 
have done for you has been done out of my own 
free-will, and because I saw there was the stuff 
in you to make a man of science, and it isn’t 
any money of yours that I care about, or that 
I would take now if you offered it to me. But 
before this business about the partnership goes 
any further, I want to say something to you. If 
this money was ever paid into your mother’s 
hands, or laid up in any way in your family, I 
should wish it to be invested now for the use of 
your sister Jean, that she may have a little 
something independent of yourself. You can 
do more in the world than she can, and it is 
only right it should be made up to her in some 
way.” 

“It is, sir,” said Roger, with a proud sadness 
in his tones ; “ and since our mother died, I 
have arranged that the fifty pounds a year 
which she had of her own when she married 
my father should be settled upon Jean. I don't 
want it ; I would rather work myself. But 
our mother never had any thing more than 
that. There was never any money paid into 
her hands that I know of ; we have no papers 
or receipts relating to it. All that we had my 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


107 


mother worked for; and worked hard, too,” 
Roger added, turning away, that Mr. Arncliffe 
might not see the tears in his eyes as he thought 
of the quiet, strong woman who bore so patiently 
her long years of toil. 

Mr. Arncliffe looked puzzled. He reached 
! across and grasped Roger’s hand. 

“I can’t make it out; but you’ve been a 
: good lad to your sister, anyway, and I respect 
you for it. You’ll never need to repent that. 
And I’m glad your mother didn’t know — didn’t 
know about the money, I mean. It’s a curious 
thing. There’s some hitch somewhere that I 
can’t make out. I don’t know this Mr. Arm- 
strong, and I don’t want to bother him about 
it until I’ve a little more ground to stand upon. 
You’d better talk it over with your sister. She 
has a clear head for most things. Whatever 
goes into that mill will come out well ground, 
I know, and, between you, you must make out 
what you can. That’s where the thing stops 
now, and we sha’n’t be able to get on much 
further in the other matter until it’s cleared 
out of the way. I don’t think I’ll keep you 
any longer now. Just help me down, though, 
with that great lens before you go.” 

“Splendid piece of glass!” he said, smooth- 
ing it gently with his hand, as a father might 
stroke the cheek of his youngest born. “I 
don’t suppose there’s such another in the world. 
And when we’ve made it all that it can be 
made, Roger — ” 

And the old man’s face lighted up, and the 
keen gray eyes, sparkled, as he realized the glo- 
rious possibilities only waiting there for touch 
of his skill to awaken. After all, life was a 
grand thing, and he had used it to some pur- 
pose. 

Roger went away. After a while Mr. Arncliffe 
turrfed to his chair by the fire, pushed up his 
spectacles, and fell to thinking. 

“There’s something gone crooked there,” 
he said to himself ; “ but the little lassie with 
the great forehead will put it straight. Those 
clear eyes of hers look right into things.” 

Then there was a long spell of silence— silence 
in which no subtle problem of optical science 
had beeg thought out, or calculation worked to 
a successful end. 

“What a foolish old man I am!” said the 
great astronomer at last. “As if it could 
ever have been of any use !” 

For not many weeks beforohe had asked the 
“ little brown-faced hunchback” to be. his wife, 
and, with the tears in her eyes, she had said 
him nay.. 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

Roger came home and told his sister all 
about it. Ilis spirit rose within him at the 
thought that he could have taken Mr. Arn- 
cliffe’s kindness, and been a pensioner upon 
his charity, while all the time the money which 
should have rendered him independent of it 


had been laid up. The reflection, too, upon 
his mother galled him to the quick. Did Mr. 
Arncliffe, then, think — had he been thinking 
all these years — that Mrs. Monkeston had 
sponged upon a generosity to which she had 
no right, which, in common honesty, she ought 
to have put aside ? He felt that he could not 
look his employer in the face again until this 
matter had been cleared up, his own and his 
mother’s clean-handed poverty proved beyond 
a doubt. 

Jean was not so surprised. She had a dim 
remembrance of Mrs. Bratchet’s story, though 
the quick rush of events since then had pre- 
vented her from much dwelling upon it. She 
remembered, too, the quiet resolve of her moth- 
er’s tones. 

“I wish it never mentioned again.” 

It never had been mentioned again. But 
whether there was any foundation for the 
story, whether the money had been offered 
and refused, or never offered at all, she could 
not tell. The whole affair, most likely, be- 
longed to those sad years of which Mrs. Monk- 
eston so rarely spoke, years in which she had 
borne the burden of their father’s slow wreck 
and ruin, and borne it so bravely, too. Little 
wonder that she laid it from her when chance 
gossip brought it to the surface again. 

But it must not be laid away now f . Jean 
sent for Mrs. Bratcliet, and bade her tell w hat 
she could remember of the circumstances. 

“It’s just here,” said the good woman, de- 
lighted to have an opportunity of launching 
out at last into the subject w'hich had always 
been such a mystery to her, but which she had 
never dared to mention again since Mrs. Monk- 
eston’s quiet dismissal of it, five or six months 
ago. “ It’s here, Miss Jean. Patch and me 
was set talking a bit afore the Festival, as 
she’s never handed up since, no, nor don’t 
mean to, by appearances, for there’s nobody, 
to my knowledge, ever set eyes on her again, 
and that fifteen-and-sixpence of mine, which 
I’d broiled and toiled for it, took off as I say 
it’s a burning shame, and me a lone woman 
this thirty year since my old man died, with 
the stationed minister to see him reg’lar, and 
the sacrament and all proper, as if he’d be- 
longed to one of the front pews theirselvcs he 
couldn’t have been better done to. And I 
w'as a-telling of her, Miss Jean, how your poor 
dear mother, bless her! had offered for yonder 
young woman as madamc sent aw^ay to come 
and stop with you, which I’ll stick to it she’d 
ought to ha’ known better nor to have done 
such’n a thing, and me the mother to her I’ve 
been ever since she come to the house, and 
always her meals reg’lar to the minnit, as I 
couldn’t have laid myself out for it more if 
she’d been my very own ; but I’ll never do* it 
again, no, that I won’t ; and never a word to 
say how or why ; and all her bits of tilings left 
about, and her box, as there’s many a one’s 
told me it were better sold for the rent, only 
I’m not a woman as does that sort of way.” 


108 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


“But about this storv which Patch told?” 
said Jean, taking advantage of a break in Mrs. 
Bratchet’s harangue to bring her thoughts back 
to the starting-point. 

“Ay, the story, Miss Jean, and that's what 
I were coming to, and a good turn of your poor 
dear mother, too, as she’d offered to do the girl, 
and I overed it again and again to Patch, as 
it wasn’t a woman in a thousand would have 
done it, and Mrs. Monkeston not to call rich as 
you may say, which isn’t the least manner of 
offense, Miss Jean, begging your pardon, for 
there’s a many poor enough in this world as is 
rich in the kingdom of grace, and their reward 
laid up for ’em where the moth and rust doesn’t 
corrupt, and where it won’t be took off with 
* folks going to London by the night mail, as 
it’s Dan’l liisself said they both on ’em did. 
And then Patch, she out with it, and she says 
to me, ‘ Mrs. Bratchet,’ she says, ‘ Mrs. Monk- 
eston isn’t that poor as you think,’ and she be- 
gan of a long story when she lived maid of all 
work to old Hiram Armstrong, of Wastewood, 
him as was a bad friend to your father, Miss 
Jean.” 

“I know,” said Jean, quietly, and said no 
more. 

“Ay,” continued Mrs. Bratchet, “and I 
kuowed it too, so as she didn’t need to ha’ 
told me, for many and many’s the time I’ve 
seed your poor mother set waiting for him 
wi’ that weary look on her face, when it was 
nought but old Hiram had him at the ‘ Crown 
and Cushion,’ a-boozing and a-drinking, as mer- 
ry as crickets, and never no thought o’ them 
as had the sitting-up to do, as it’s always the 
way of the men. And I said he were a bad 
tin, were old Hiram — ay, and that were he, too, 
Miss Jean, and not a sort that silver and gold 
could whitewash, for as much as he had of it 
to roll in. And then Patch, she up and, says 
she, he wasn’t so bad as a many made him out, 
for he’d laid down a lot o’ money to even it 
to your poor father ; she said he tolled her it 
his own self, nobbut a week afore he died, one 
night when she went in to take him his supper, 
so that people shouldn’t have it to say of him, 
after he was gone, as he had helped any one 
to their ruin. And the money was for the lit- 
tle boy, as I understood it, Miss Jean — Master 
Roger, you know — so as he should get his lam- 
ing proper, and be put out to summut respecta- 
ble when the time come.” 

“I don’t understand how he could have 
done any thing of the sort without my mother’s 
knowledge,” said Jean. “We have found no 
papers referring to it.” 

“Maybe not, Miss Jean. I’m only telling 
you as it come to me, and as like as not I’ve 
let a good bit slip through, not being as it was 
my business to stir into it. But now I start to 
think about it, I mind Patch said Mr. Ballin- 
ger had to do with it. Old Hiram had given 
the money to him, and he was to see as it went 
right road, and then I up and says, Mrs. Monk- 
eston wouldn’t have humbled herself to take it 


— no, not if they’d both on ’em gone down of 
their bended knees to beg and pray of her to, 
and old Armstrong, the nasty varmint he was, 
as there could never a blessing come along 
with it ; and I didn’t believe neither he’d ever 
as much grace in him as ’ud serve to clear out 
his pockets for them as he’d wronged, let ’em 
want it ever so ; but Patch, she stuck t.o it as 
that was the way, and no other ; and nought as 
I could say made a bit o’ difference, for she’s 
a woman, is Batch, Miss Jean, as, if she takes 
hold on a thing, you might as well try to move 
Cruxborough Minster ’as make her leave go; 
and that made me as I couldn’t put it off in a 
manner ; only when I seed your poor mother 
a-working and a-slaving of herself in that there 
shop, as it stands to reason she wouldn’t have 
done it if there hadn’t been a need, and Mr. 
Roger beginning to feel his feet, as you may 
say, under him at Mr. Arncliffe’s, so as he 
wasn’t to care for so much. And maybe 
there’s a deal more, if one could only light 
upon it ; but you sec, with Patch being gone, 
and never no knowing where she’s took herself 
to, one has to let it be. Or else I’m sure she’d 
a vast more to say.” 

“And does no one know where she is?” said 
Jean. “ Did she leave no message ?” 

“No, Miss Jean — leastways, none as I ever 
heard tell on ; and not very likely either, with 
that fiftecm-and-sixpence of mine a-burning 
through her pockets, as I hope and trust it will, 
which isn’t unchristian, Miss Jean, I don’t think, 
and me the friend to her I was. And Dan’l’s 
wife ’ll bear me w itness to it, as it's many and 
many a time I’ve sent her home there with a 
bit o’ cold meat lapped up in a cloth, or a drop 
o’ gin if she’d a pain in her inside, which she 
was a w r oman as often had it, and wi’ nought 
but hunger neither ; and enjoyed poor health 
in a general way, which w r asn’t to w r onder at, 
for she was that sort as never did credit to her 
keep, let you give her what you would, and a 
bad digeshun, too, I w arrant. Them furriners 
mostly has.” 

And Mrs. Bratchet smoothed her shawl com- 
fortably down over her own digestive apparatus, 
which had been working on now for ippre than 
sixty years, in sublime unconciousness of its 
existence, just content with doing its duty, like 
those happy people who have no history. 

“Not as it kep’her, though, from her work,” 
Mrs. Bratchet continued. “I will say that for 
her. She was a good sort, and never put her- 
self forrads where she wasn’t wanted, as there’s 
a many does it nowadays. And as steady, if 
it was the men you spoke about, ay, as steady 
as Martinet’s bank itself — never went out of 
her w’ay to look at ’em, nor couldn’t abide them 
as did ; and that was how she come to bring 
the young w r oman Gretchen to me, Miss Jean. 
Not as she was that way inclined, not a bit, for 
a modester, more well-conducteder person you 
never lighted on, only there was a many com- 
ing and going where Patch lodged w’ith her, 
and when there’s a pot o’ mignonnette set any- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


109 


where, it stands to reason folks will find it oiit, 
and when they’ve took it away, why, then it’s 
; overlate to lock your gate, and so Patch axed 
: me if I’d make it so as she could have her home 
wi’ me, being as respectable a woman, though 
I say it as shouldn’t, as you’ll find anywhere in 
| Cruxborough, if it’s keeping yourself to your- 
self that’s wanted, which it seems to me that’s 
! what it is. And I’ve had my thoughts, too, 
f Miss Jean, if I may speak ’em, about that there 
what’s-his-name as come here with madame, 
and took the young woman away. As soon as 
the Festival began to get agate, she’d used to 
I talk about somebody as she’d knowed out in 
I them parts where she come from, and her moth- 
I er didn’t approve, and sent her away over here, 
which she couldn’t have done a better thing for 
Eer, and him coming and going in that way, 
which it stands to reason he meant something 
by it,' or ought to do. And it lies strong upon 
my mind, Miss Jean, not as I could tell nobody 
I the why and the wherefore, but only just I’ve 
I fixed it so, as this is him, and lie’s heard tell on 
her. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, as like 
as not, and I don’t know as it matters much, 

: for you’d best let young people go their own 
|i way when they’re set on it, and most says 
madame’s a good sort, so she’ll be well took 
care on. But I’m not a woman as talks, ’’add- 
ed Mrs. Bratchet, rising complacently, and ad- 
justing her bonnet-strings. And having thus 
epitomized herself, she made her courtesy, and 
| retired into the kitchen, to have the whole mat- 
ter over there again from beginning to end with 
Gurtha. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

That was a new light on Gretchen’s disap- 
pearance, but a light which showed her farther 
and farther away. Jean remembered now the 
, dim, vague regretfulness with which the girl 

i had spoken of some one at Stuttgart who had 
taken an interest in her, and would have made 
her a great singer, “ but my mother willed it 
not.” Was this the same man whom good or 
evil fortune — who could tell — had caused to 
cross her path again, and with whom madame 
had bidden her away to make her own place in 

4 the world ? 

Jean wondered much, but said nothing. 

I For Gretchen’s name was never spoken now in 

ii that house, where once it had been another 
) word for sunshine ; and whether Roger remcm- 
| bered, or whether he forgot, scarce showed it- 
self upon the grave young face, which was be- 
ginning to wear the strength of conscious man- 
hood. Jean noticed sometimes a strange look 

l of their mother in his face — that folding of the 
? lips which held back so much, that patient, 
j earnest look, just touched with the pride of in- 
\ dependence. It seemed as if he were taking 
upon himself her place ; as if his now should be 
I the care and the toil which for all those years 
she had borne so bravely. That new serious- 


ness of life, not any regret or bitterness for the 
past, Jean thought, told the story of his altered 
bearing now. 

But Mr. Arncliffe must be seen again ; and 
Roger saw him the day after the talk with Mrs. 
Bratchet. He told him the substance of the old 
woman’s story, the only point on which it gave 
any light being the mention of Mr. Ballinger’s 
name in connection with the transfer of the 
money ; and as Patch had disappeared, and as 
Mrs. Bratchet’s memory was not very clear, 
even that was not of much use. 

“Patch — yes. Rather queer thing that,” 
said Mr. Arncliffe, as he and Roger sat in the 
inner office after working-hours — “very queer 
thing, indeed. She was in the same carriage 
when I went up to town — came scrambling in 
like a monkey after we had got to the shunting- 
station, and then dropped back in her seat as if 
she would have fainted. I spoke to her as we 
were getting out, and asked her how it w’as she 
had come so far from home ; but she did not 
seem disposed to be communicative, so I let her 
alone. She has not turned up again, I sup- 
pose ?” 

“No, and so one of the other women has 
been put into her place. It is a pity, for she 
kept the lacquering-room in better order than 
it had ever been before ; and the worst of it 
is, she has gone away in debt. She has taken 
nearly a pound of poor old Mrs. Bratchet’s 
money, and left her rent unpaid at herlodgings. 
I thought better of her than that.” 

“And so did I; but the longer you live in 
the world the less you know what to think. 
I’m in the dark now about this Wastewood af- 
fair, and I sha’n’t rest until I’ve cleared it up. 
I mean to see Ballinger to-morrow, if I can ; 
when I’ve got something out of him, I’ll go to 
Armstrong, and then, maybe, we shall see to the 
end of the tunnel. There’s been a hitch some- 
where, if we could find out where it is.” 

Mr. Arncliffe was as anxious as Roger could 
be to set matters straight, and especially since 
the affair had been complicated by the bringing 
in of Mr. Ballinger’s name, a name by no means 
synonymous with honor, truth, and straightfor- 
wardness — at least, not so in the opinion of the 
shrewd old astronomer. Accordingly, he took 
the earliest opportunity of going to the office in 
High Street to make his first experiment in 
boring. 

It was his first visit there since that memo- 
rable evening, eleven years ago, when Roger was 
delivered from the initiatory mysteries of the 
profession. Mr. Ballinger had risen consider- 
ably in the world since then. Pie had beamed 
over his spectacles at innumerable charity 
school-meetings, and rehearsed to whole annies 
of blue-coat boys the story of his rise and prog- 
ress in life — a story which was always received 
as if no one had ever heard it before, when the 
speaker, applying to his glass of water at a cer- 
tain point in the narrative, intimated that the 
pent-up feeling of his audience might now be- 
gin to express itself. But of course that little 


110 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


episode about the bank shares was never men- 
tioned as having occurred during the said rise 
and progress, although, so far as wealth was 
concerned, it had really given him his start. 
Indeed, to do him justice, Mr. Ballinger had al- 
most forgotten the details. Eleven years of 
hard work w a successful run of speculations, a 
close application to the duties of his profession, 
“ eventuating,” as he liked to say, in one of the 
best positions in Cruxborough, had well-nigh 
driven away the memory of that night at 
Wastewood when he had ventured to question 
old Hiram’s wisdom in the choice of a house- 
keeper, and that other night, a few weeks later, 
when he had burned the little scrap of paper 
which alone stood between him and the undis- 
turbed enjoyment of the shares in Martinet’s 
bank. 

And then prosperity, joined with a judicious 
amount of reserve, makes such a capital hedge 
round a man’s private character, and, if self- 
esteem is added, the inclosure is complete. The 
hedge which Mr. Ballinger had, with much 
pains and trouble, raised round his own little 
particular plot of ground was of the closest, 
most invulnerable sort — thick, well-planted, 
deeply-rooted, never a chink in it through which 
the owner of the garden need look to waste 
lands or uncultivated patches beyond, or thin 
place which might afford to passers-by a glimpse 
of disreputable rubbish-heaps and obnoxious 
weeds, rotting in obscure corners of the other- 
wise well-kept little paradise. Evergreen, too, 
as such hedges should always be, proof against 
searching east wind of inquiry, blight of dis- 
content, grub of self-examination. As for any 
sunken fence of retrospection, that miserable 
device of a land-owner for commanding an out- 
look over his own and other people’s property, 
Mr. Ballinger despised it. What was the use 
of a garden if you couldn’t keep it to yourself? 
If you couldn’t see over into your neighbor’s 
corn-fields without in return giving him the 
command of your own private rubbish-heaps, 
why, better do without the prospect altogether. 

The only approach to any thing like a gap in 
Mr. Ballinger’s splendid evergreen hedge had 
threatened it when, eight years after old Hi- 
ram’s death, Mr. Stanley Armstrong came to 
the new house at Wastewood. Then there cer- 
tainly had been signs of a blight in one corner 
of the inclosure — a corner, too, which closely 
adjoined a very disreputable rubbish-heap, one 
which might almost have brought its owner 
within the provisions of the Public Nuisances 
Act if found out. But Mr. Ballinger had been 
equal to the occasion. He had cut away dis- 
eased wood, planted new shoots, manured the 
ground thoroughly, and put tip a temporary 
screen, until the young foliage had gathered 
strength. In other tvords, he had taken pre- 
cautions to keep Mr. Armstrong entirely out of 
the way of the Monkestons, which was an easy 
thing to do, by representing them to him as ex- 
ceedingly low people — in fact, no sort of socie- 
ty at all ; and then, worming himself into the 


man’s good graces by unlimited hospitality, 
hospitality which seemed likely now to have its 
reward in the elevation of Matilda to the own- 
ership and queendom of Wastewood. And be- 
tween himself and that quarter from which the 
east wind occasionally blew, said quarter being 
occupied by the proprietor of the Woolsthorpe 
works, he had set out a plantation of distant 
courteous civility, which formed an admirable 
shelter from the too close approach of the en- 
emy. 

All -was now safe, sound, and comfortable. 
He might walk up and down in perfect peace, 
sit under the shadow of his own vine and fig- 
tree, forget his rubbish-heaps entirely, or use 
them as a compost for bedding-out plants, and 
so, by the splendid chemistry of worldliness, 
turn them into the brilliant flowers which might 
be plucked and displayed to the eyes of an ad- 
miring public. For was not that great house 
on the Portman Road, with its glare, and its 
show, and its ostentation, just like a gigantic 
fungus, which had grown out of the rottenness 
and foulness of that long-ago transaction with 
old Hiram Armstrong? But evil days were at 
hand for the evergreen hedge. 

“Good-evening, Mr. Ballinger,” said the pro- 
prietor of the Woolsthorpe works, going into 
the little inner office not long before Christmas. 
“Rather cold, sir. Wind in the east, I fancy 
—eh ?” 

“Very cold indeed, sir,” said Mr. Ballinger, 
buttoning his coat round him, and bowing po- 
litely. “ Pray be seated. It is not often that 
I have the pleasure of receiving you in what I 
may denominate my little sanctum. It is, as 
you say, very cold — quite a change in the 
weather.” 

“ Yes, blows sharp, rather ; but we must ex- 
pect it. Things generally come to their time, 
don’t they, Mr. Ballinger ? The only way is 
to get ready for them, and a touch of east in 
the wind never makes any difference to me. 
I don’t mind it a bit.” 

Mr. Ballinger shivered slightly. He mind- 
ed it very much ; in fact, there was nothing to 
which, at the present time, he had a stronger 
objection, and he said so ; then waited for his 
visitor’s errand to be unfolded. 

“It’s a little matter of business connected 
with the Monkestons, Mr. Ballinger, that I’ve 
come to trouble you about. I may as well tell 
you I have had a bit of a shake in that direc- 
tion.” 

Mr. Ballinger unbuttoned his coat directly. 
Milder — decidedly milder. 

“ Quite likely, my dear sir. Indeed, with- 
out being understood to say any thing which 
might in the slightest degree militate against 
your well-known experience in discernment of 
character, I might venture to hint that for some 
time past I have been looking forward to some- 
thing, of this kind — something, I mean, which 
would occasion a change in. your sentiments to- 
ward a famity for whom I have never myself 
entertained the unbounded respect which you 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


Ill 




appear to have felt. Differences of opinion, 
my dear sir — differences of opinion, you know. 
But really in some families the had blood nev- 
er appears to wear out entirely.” 

“Bad blood — yes, that brings me to it, for 
I expect poor Ralph Monkeston was at the 
bottom of it. Old Iliram Armstrong was a 
queer character, but perhaps he had his good 
qualities, after all.” 

“Undoubtedly, sir, undoubtedly. In fact, 
I may say, looking abroad upon the great field 
of human nature” — here Mr. Ballinger began 
; to assume the platform style, and beam upon 
an imaginary audience through his spectacles 
i . — “ the great field of human nature, my dear 
sir, where do we find mankind without what I 
may call redeeming qualities ? Even the un- 
: tutored savage, even the denizens of the lowest 
abodes of destitution — ” 

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Arnclitfe, dashing into 
the midst of the sentence before it reached its 
climax, “exactly; and I’ve happened to find 
out that old Hiram tried to do something to- 
, ward making it up to poor Ralph Monkeston — 
paid down a sum for the little lad's education, 
and for a premium when he wanted putting out 
into business. Creditable of him, wasn’t it?” 

Mr. Ballinger stirred the office fire, rang for 
the boy to put on more coal. Certainly, very 
cold now for the time of year — almost what 
might be called a blight in the air for ever- 
greens. Nothing serious yet, though, if vigor- 
ous measures were used at once to stop it. A 
benevolent shake of the head, a gentle smile, a 
little kindly doubt would set every thing straight 
again. 

“Very possibly, sir, very possibly. I think, 
now you recall it to my mind, I did once hear 
of a proposition of that kind — most likely the 
result of an extra glass of spirit-and-water. We 
all know, my dear Mr. Arncliff'e, what Hiram 
Armstrong was. Without the least disrespect 
to his memory, I think I may be allowed to say 
that he was a man of good intentions — very good 
intentions, especially when in the company of 
congenial associates. But as for any thing more 
than that — ” 

And bringing the benevolent shake of the 
head and the gentle smile into action, Mr. Bal- 
linger dismissed poor old Hiram’s good inten- 
tions to what was manifestly their sole purpose 
— the paving of dangerous roads. Every one 
knew what men would do — or, at least, what 
they would promise to do — when warmed by 
the generous influence of vieux Cognac. 

Mr. Arncliff’e seemed puzzled for a moment, 
tried to look right into Mr. Ballinger’s face, but 
could not, it being bent over some papers which 
required immediate attention ; then bore down 
from the inclement quarter with more vigor 
than before. 

“Yes, Mr. Ballinger, I can understand a man 
promising to do things, and then forgetting all 
about them ; but I don’t think even old Hiram 
himself would write out to the Colonies, and 
say he’d done a thing — mind, that he really 


had done it when it was only a matter of inten- 
tion. Men don’t usually write letters except 
when they are sober.” 

Mr. Ballinger buttoned his coat again direct- 
ly. Letters? letters? what did Mr. Arncliff’e 
know about letters ? Had the old cattle-dealer 
been writing to any body about that affair? 
Were not his very last words on the subject 
words of confidence? “It’s between you and 
me, Ballinger, between you and me;” and every 
thing that he had done since had been done 
upon the assumption that he, and he only, knew 
the old man’s purpose. Letters were a nui- 
sance! Grub, mildew, blight, any thing but 
wholesome for an evergreen hedge. A screen 
must be put up at once. 

“ Excuse me, Mr. Arncliff'e, if I am not able 
to enter upon the subject with you. My rec- 
ollections are too indistinct to allow me to 
speak with confidence. As you are aware, my 
life is one of much public enterprise — may I 
add, also, of a philanthropic character? and in- 
volves me in pursuits w r hich incapacitates mo 
for the remembrance of trifles at a distance. 
In fact, I can not now charge my memory with 
the facts to which you allude.” 

“Perhaps not, Mr. Ballinger, and so I will 
just run them over to you as I have gathered 
them up. A few weeks ago, as I was going up 
to London by the evening train, I overheard a 
conversation between Mr. Stanley Armstrong 
and some one who seemed to be a commercial 
traveler. At any rate, whatever he was, he 
knew Mrs. Monkeston by going to the shop 
sometimes, and he expressed his surprise at 
young Monkeston’s being articled to me, on ac- 
count of the premium, which he supposed must 
have been considerable. And Mr. Armstrong 
accounted for it by saying that his uncle, old 
Hiram, of Wastewood, had laid down a certain 
sum of money, to be used for Roger’s educa- 
tion and establishment in business. That was 
all I heard, and I dare say I shouldn’t have 
heard so much as that, if my own name hadn’t 
been mentioned in it, which of course made me 
listen with a little more interest.” 

“Exactly so, my dear sir,” said Mr. Ballin- 
ger, thinking how much more convenient it 
would have been if his visitor had improved 
the shining hours of that railway journey in 
peaceful slumbers, instead of picking up frag- 
ments of a conversation which might possibly 
produce such unpleasant results. 

“Now, you know, Ballinger,” persisted Mr. 
Arncliff’e, “not a penny has ever been paid to 
me in the way of premium for Roger. I don’t 
say it to make myself look like a generous 
man, but simply because it ought to be known 
to make the case clearer. And as for his edu- 
cation, I know perfectly well that was provided 
for him free of expense at the Minster school. 
Dr. Boniface, w r ho has always been a good 
friend to him, told me that when I first thought 
of taking him. The question comes up, then, 
who got the money ?” 

“I should say,” answered Mr. Ballinger, 


112 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


blandly, “ that there never was any transaction 
of the kind you name. It has been a misun- 
derstanding on young Mr. Armstrong’s part.” 

“No, not so. I asked Roger about it, fori 
always think a thing is better stirred into at 
once, and he had never heard of any money ; 
but lie consulted with his sister, and a Mrs. 
Bratchet, who had once come to the house with 
some obscure sort of story about old Hiram, 
was sent for. What Mrs. Bratchet says is this, 
that a woman named Patch — Do you happen 
to remember a woman named Patch, Mr. Bal- 
linger?” 

Mr. Ballinger was not able to charge his 
memory with any such name. At least, so he 
said. 

“Well, I don’t know that it’s much conse- 
quence just yet; perhaps you will remember 
when I begin to recall the facts. This woman, 
Patch, once lived as servant-housekeeper with 
old Mr. Armstrong, and he was in the habit of 
talking to her sometimes about his affairs, as 
people of that sort do, especially when they are 
given to drink. And one evening after you 
had been sent for to see him, he told this Patch 
that he had been making an arrangement with 
you for the benefit of the Monkestons. The 
interest of some bank shares was to be appro- 
priated for their use, and you were to have the 
management of them. That is what the wom- 
an said to Mrs. Bratchet. Now, of course, 
if one had happened accidentally upon such a 
story, one might have believed it, or not; but 
tallying so curiously with what I overheard in 
the railway-carriage, it seemed worth looking 
into.” 

“May I ask, sir, did Mr. Armstrong mention 
my name in connection with this affair?” 

‘ ‘ Not that I am aware of. You only appear 
in Mrs. Bratchet’s version of the story. And, 
very unfortunately, the woman Patch, from 
whom she received it, has disappeared suddenly. 
Indeed, she traveled to London in the same 
carriage with me, and has never been heard of 
since, so that we can not get any further light 
from that quarter ; but as you were named, I 
thought I had better come to you before I 
troubled Armstrong about it.” 

“ Very wise, my dear sir,” answered Mr. Bal- 
linger, who was determined that, if he could pre- 
vent such a proceeding, Mr. Armstrong should 
never be troubled about it at all. “I always 
counsel prudence. It is not advisable to stir up 
ill feeling ; and with the position that Mr. Arm- 
strong holds inCruxborough, hewould naturally 
shrink from being reminded of facts so deroga- 
tory to his uncle’s character. As for the wom- 
an upon whom the chief weight of this evidence 
rests, I may, perhaps, be pardoned for doubting 
the perfect reliability of her testimony. Now 
that you recall the facts, I certainly have a dim 
remembrance of the party mentioned — a some- 
w’hat irregular character, and, if I maybe allow- 
ed to express my opinion, of unsound mind.” 

“ Capital worker, though, ’’said Mr. Arncliffe, 
shrewdly. “No unsoundness there. Was over 


the women in my lacquering-room for years, 
and kept it in better order, the clerk of works 
said, than it had ever been before.” 

“ Quite possibly.” And Mr. Ballinger stir- 
red the fire. “There are diversities of gifts. 
Many women of weak intellect have a capacity 
for work of a manual description, but their testi- 
mony in a court of law would not be admitted, ; 
This woman was a foreigner, I believe, of 
peculiar manner and habits. She may have 
had some ulterior motif e in the story which she 
fabricated, and into which she has brought my 
name. I should prefer at present not venturing 
an opinion upon the subject.” 

“I don’t know about her motives,” said Mr. 
Arncliffe; “but as the rest of the story tallies 
with what I heard before, I don’t see why we 
shouldn’t give her credit for honesty in this part 
of it. However, I will not trouble you further 
now, as your time is not always at your own 
disposal. I think my best plan will be to see 
Armstrong about it, and then, some evening 
when you are not very busy, we will perhaps 
talk it over again. I must say I should like to 
see to the end of it, now that we have begun.” , 

Mr. Ballinger turned over the law papers 
which lay upon the desk before him. What- 
ever else Mr. Arncliffe was allowed to do, he 
certainly must not be allowed to trouble Mr. 
Armstrong upon this subject at present. Things 
were getting awkward. A gap in the hedge, 
just opposite a most unseemly rubbisli-heap, 
seemed unavoidable. He must have time to 
throw up a temporary screen before the mis- ; 
chief went any further; and the only way of 
doing this was to keep Mr. Armstrong in ig- I 
norance for a few weeks. He meant himself 1 
to see him at once, find out how much he j 
knew, also whether lie had any written evi- ,1 
dence to bring forward respecting his uncle's | 
intentions. That being done, he would make | 
his plans accordingly. 

“Excuse me, my dear sir,” he said, very 
cautiously, “ but I do not think it would be 
advisable for you at present to take such action 
as you indicate. I am exceedingly sorry not 
to be able to furnish you with the requisite in- 
formation, and I perfectly sympathize with 
your desire for complete satisfaction ; but if 
you will be good enough to place the matter in < 
my hands, not, I beg to state, with the remotest 
view to professional interest on my part, but ,, 
solely for the purpose of probing its merits to ; 
the uttermost, I will promise that it shall be 
treated with the attention it deserves.” 

“The money hasn’t been paid, then, has it ?” 1 
said Mr. Arncliffe, bluntly, as he rose to go. 

“ To my knowledge, certainly not, Mr. Am- 1 
cliffe. I believe I am correct in assuring you l 
that no provision of the nature you mention 1 
has ever been made for the Monkestons — at j 
least, not under my hand. Of course I am not 
able to state what arrangements may have been 
entered into -without my cognizance ; but I am 
exceedingly glad to dispel the erroneous im- 
pression which my respected friend, Mr. Arm- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


113 


; strong, has made — unconsciously, of course — for 
; I believe him to be a person of the strictest in- 
tegrity ; and it will give me great pleasure, at 
my earliest convenience, to inquire further into 
the matter, and acquaint you Avith its bearings. 

! I may consider, then, I presume, that it is in 
my hands for the present ? You will take no 
further action until you hear from me ?” 

And, much relie\ r ed to have the intervieAv 
at an end, Mr. Ballinger bowed his visitor out. 


CHAPTER XLYI. 

Mr. Arncliffe was satisfied now on the 
i chief point of his anxiety. The Monkcstons 
i had neA r er received any pecuniary help from 
old Hiram Armstrong, of WasteAvood. Wheth- 
er such help had ever been intended, whether 
it had been offered and declined, or Avhether, 
having been set apart to their use, it had been af- 
terward turned into another channel, Avere ques- 
tions which might be settled by-and-bv, but 
which need not interfere Avith present action. 

He decided Avhat he AA r ould do, and next af- 
ternoon sent for Roger to him in the inner of- 
fice. The young man came with that brave, 
free consciousness of Avell-doing, Avhich is the 
best help to independence. No need for him 
to turn aside from the shrewd yet kindly look 
of the keen gray eyes; no need to brush up 
excuses, or ask time for consideration, when 
summoned to private interviews Avith his em- 
ployer. That queer affair of old Armstrong's 
Avas a matter of perfect indifference to him. 
If it had not been, though, Mr. Arncliffe’s Avoi ds 
Avould have set him at ease. 

“It’s all right, Roger,” said the old man, 
shaking hands Avith him heartily. “I’ve seen 
Ballinger about it. There’s a hitch some- 
Avliere, but it isn’t on your side of the question, 
and so Ave can set to Avork at once. YouVe 
seiwed me noAv for eleven years, and I’ve given 
I you fair Avages, and taught you as much as I 
! could, eh ?” 

“That was more to me, though, than any 
wages,” said Roger, thinking of those long 
mathematical and astronomical lessons in which 
j his teacher’s patience had neArer failed. “You 
i haA r e taken more trouble Avith me than eA T er I 
■ can repay you for, if I Avorked here at me- 
l chanics’ AV'ages all my life.” 

Old Matthew dashed a tear off his eye- 
lashes. 

“All right, my boy, but Ave must start on a 
fresh track noAv. I don’t despise gratitude — 
\ it’s a very good thing in its Avay, but I should 
3 despise myself if I could make use of it to 
I serve my own ends. You have a good head 
ji for this sort of thing, Roger, and you have a 
i fair knoAvledge of Avhat belongs to the differ- 
ent departments, and it Avould be a mean trick 
! of me to keep you here at mechanics’ Avages, 

* or eA*en an upper clerk’s salary, when you 
! might be making vour six or seven hundred a 
8 


year at one of the great houses in London. 
Noav I’ll tell you Avhat I’ll do. I Avill either 
give you a recommendation to one of these 
London houses, a post at the Observatory, if 
you like, or abroad — I have applications al- 
most every month for suitable people — or you 
can stop here with a share in the concern, and 
a reasonable proportion of the profits. It’s 
just in A^our OAvn hands Avhat you would like to 
do.” 

“I Avould rather stay with you, sir,” said 
Roger, quietly. 

“That’s right. I’m glad you’ve taken it 
that way. I’m not quite what I used to be, 
for I’ve Avorked hard and lived sparely, and 
it’s beginning to tell upon me, and I should 
like to knoAV there Avas some one ready for my 
place Avhen IVe done Avith it. Only it was fair 
I should give you the choice betAveen here and 
London or the Continent. You might, per- 
haps, give yourself more there to the scientific 
part of it. Here there’s a good deal of mere 
hand-work, though that’s a fine field enough for 
a young man Avith taste for it ; and there’s no 
knoAving what you may come to by-and-by. 

“No, no, noAv don’t go into that sort of 
thing,” he continued, as Roger was beginning 
to express his thanks. “That isn’t what I 
want at all. I can’t bear to have people ex- 
pressing their obligations to me when I’m only 
looking after my oavii profit. Here I am, and 
I AA’ant the work done ; there you are, and you 
can do it. It’s a fair balance, and there’s no 
need for any one to go doAvn on their knees 
about it. Only, Roger, there’s one thing I 
want to say to you.” 

“Iam ready to hear it, sir.” 

“ Take care of your sister. She’s a brave 
little AA'oman, and she’ll be a blessing to you 
all your life. I don’t knoAV that I’ve got any 
thing more iu say. If you’ll reach me those 
papers out of the safe, I’ll be g;:::g on a little 
Avith the lenses. I think noAv, if I’m spared to 
see them mounted, I shall be content. You 
can go back to your work, and Ave’ll arrange 
about the rest when I come over to Bishop’s 
Lane some of these eA'enings.” 

Roger Avent back to one of the higher finish- 
ing-rooms, where he had been employed for the 
last feAv Aveeks in matters connected Avith the 
neAV telescope. But he could not settle doAvn 
to work ; he only Avandered about among the 
instruments, re-adjusting a wheel or a screw 
here and there, or looking over the piece of 
clock-AA'ork Avhich Avas to keep those great lenses 
sloAvly moving Avith the motion of the earth. 
This w r as Roger’s OAvn idea for the Paris tele- 
scope, so he took especial interest in the Avork- 
ing out of it ; and great had been his delight, 
a Aveek or tAvo before, Avhen, on the first trial, 
it Avas found to moA'e Avith almost perfect ac- 
curacy. He set it in motion now, watched it 
for a little Avhile, then turned aAvay, and sitting 
doAvn by the fire Avith his hands in his pockets, 
began to think. 

So, Avhat he had been longing after all his 


114 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


life had come to him. These years of patient 
waiting and working had opened to him at last 
the gate of success. He was to he a partner 
in the great Woolsthorpe works. What that 
meant he scarcely realized as yet, only that it 
gave him leave to spend his whole life in the 
work which he loved best — which it would be 
his pride to do faithfully and well, and which 
would be done now for its own sake alone. 

Partner in the Woolsthorpe works! How 
differently that would have sounded three 
months ago — what a different future it would 
have opened before him ! How impatiently he 
would have waited then for the sound of the 
great bell and the tramp of the workmen’s feet, 
that he might hurry away to the corridor, and 
tell little blue-hooded Gretchen! He would 
have bidden her home to him then, and she 
would have come — he was sure she would — 
before this other voice, which she was follow- 
ing now, had begun to call. And they would 
have been so happy. All that he could have 
won of fame and honor and world’s wealth 
would have been so much dearer to him for her 
sweet sake. He would have worked so hard 
for her ; he would have made her home so fair 
and pleasant. Why did every thing come too 
late ? Why did the sun only break out when 
the mountain top of hope had long been left 
behind, and there was no longer any fair, for- 
reaching prospect to look forth upon? Well, 
be it so. He had still Jean and his work to 
live for, and a place to make in the world, and 
much to find out there. A man must be con- 
tent with that, the rest being gone. 

Mr. Arncliffe came quietly in, and laid his 
hand on the young man’s shoulder. Roger 
started as if he had been caught in some guilty 
act. 

“ Building castles in the air, eh ? I haven’t 
seen you start like that since you were a little 
lad, looking in through the gates yonder, and 
I asked you to make room for me to come in. 
Eleven years ago. You seemed as if you were 
looking into paradise then, your bit of a face 
was so bright and eager. You may be look- 
ing into it now again, though, for. any thing I 
know.” 

“No, sir. I was only thinking what might 
have been, not what may be. You have given 
me all the paradise I care for now.” 

“ Eor the present, Roger, boy — for the pres- 
ent. It won’t last you all your life — pity if it 
could. When you come to be an old man, 
like me, it’s time enough to think of what 
might have been. Think of the possible now, 
and make it the actual. Does the clock-work 
go right?” 

“Quite. I believe you will find it as true 
as the sun. I have just been trying it.” 

“ Bravo ! That’s better than ‘ might have 
been.’ Stick to what lies before you, Roger, 
and you’ll be the right sort of man some day.” 

“Thinking of his mother, poor lad!” said 
the old man, when Roger had gone away to 
tell Jean all about it. “I wish she could have 


lived to see what he will make out one of these 
days. Well, he may thank God if never a 
‘ might have been’ comes to him that’s harder 
to think about than that.” 


CHAPTER XLVII. 

Soon after that conversation at the Wools- 
thorpe works a change began to manifest itself 
in the little house under the east front of the 
Minster. Instead of ready-made linen, strips 
of embroidery, and boxes of tapes and edgings, 
a winter-garden of ferns and creeping plants 
filled up the bow-window; and behind them 
fell soft, heavy crimson curtains, past which 
could be caught occasionally glimpses of very 
pretty furniture, and the beautiful carved oak- 
work for which Jean was quite famous now. 
A second widow, in reduced circumstances — 
there were always plenty of them in Crnxbor- 
ough — took the stock of goods, and began busi- 
ness farther down the street. The house was 
“done up” afresh by the Dean and Chapter. 
The name over the door, “Mrs. Monkeston, 
Haberdasher, and Dealer in fancy-work,” which 
for eleven long years had stood between that 
unfortunate woman and any thing like a re- 
spectable position in Cruxborough, was painted 
out— a change at which even the winking little 
dormer-windows in the roof rejoiced; for as 
soon as a slip of paneling replaced the obnox- 
ious words, they began to perk themselves up 
on the strength of their new dignity, and nod- 
ded to each other complacently, as much as to 
say, “You see, we are out of business at last.” 

Young Monkeston, too, began to carry him- 
self differently. It was quite astonishing, peo- 
ple said, what an improvement had taken place 
in him since the Festival. You never met him 
whistling in the streets now, or jaunting along 
in a careless, jovial way, like an ordinary work- 
man. Instead, he held up his head with what 
might almost be termed pride, if a man in his 
position could ever have any thing to be proud 
about, and seemed to feel at last that some- 
thing more w r as required of him than merely 
doing his w'ork well, according to the injunc- 
tions of the Shorter Catechism. Quite a change 
for the better. There w r as really no telling now 
what he might be fit for some day, in a social 
point of view. 

When Cruxborough had satisfied itself that 
the shop really was defunct, not relegated to a 
shuffling back stairs existence, under the joint 
management of Gurtha and Mrs. Bratchet, it 
began to consider whether, after all, cards 
might not be left at the little bow-window r ed 
house in Bishop’s Lane. So for as Miss Monk- 
eston, poor thing, was concerned, it thought 
the attention might be offered with perfect im- 
punity, for her mourning was, on the whole, 
very handsome ; and Canon Boniface’s daugh- 
ter had been knowm to call upon her several 
times since her mother’s death. Besides, she 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


115 


never wqnt into society ; no one ever heard of 
her being seen in public, except at the Minster 
services, so that the usual invitations would not 
be expected to follow a call of ceremony. It 
would simply answer its purpose of an excuse 
for drawing young Monkeston a little more into 
society. 

For if it was true that Mr. Arncliflfe had taken 
him into partnership, something ought to be 
done. It was so very different from a shop. 
A share in the Woolsthorpe works was almost 
equal to a professional position, besides being 
such a splendidly paying thing. If Mr. Arn- 
diffe himself had not been such a peculiar old 
man, so shy and awkward, and so remiss in all 
the little social courtesies, he might have mixed 
in the very best circles of Cruxborough. And 
so might his young partner too, now, if only 
he would rub up and show himself equal to the 
situation. Cruxborough would give him the 
opportunity of doing so, at any rate. And as 
it knew he thought a great deal of his sister, 
and would not accept any courtesy which had 
not previously been at least offered to her, it 
put its pride in its pocket, its best bonnet on 
its head, and actually called upon “ those 
Monkestons.” 

Mow Mrs. Balmain rejoiced now in that 
most wise kind-heartedness which had kept 
her husband from quite cutting Roger when 
he passed him in the street ! How she praised 
herself for the admirable prevision which had, 

1 as it were, left the social door on the latch, in 
case the young mechanic should ever be qual- 
ified to give the proper regulation knock there- 
at, and avail himself of the privilege of access ! 
| She even walked over to the new house on the 
Portman Road on purpose to consult Mrs. Bal- 
linger as to the expediency of giving a select 
little entertainment, to which Mr. Monkeston 
should be invited as the central guest. 

“ I thought I would ask you first, you know, 
my dear Mrs. Ballinger, for I was not quite 
i sure whether you would like to meet him. I 
! am always very particular about introducing 
people if I am not certain they will be agreea- 
ble. * It struck me that perhaps a dinner would 
be most sociable — more marked, you know, than 
an indiscriminate evening party ; only, poor fel- 
low ! I dare say he hasn’t the least idea what to 
do with his serviette or finger-glass. I believe 
that sort of people never have ; but still, it could 
be quite a small affair — only yourself, and Mr. 
| Ballinger, and Matilda, with Mr. Armstrong, of 
>i course ; so it wouldn’t signify so much if he did 
happen to make a slip or two. You know, my 
husband has taken such a fancy to Mr. Arm- 
strong. I think he begins to feel himself quite 
; one of us. I really say sometimes I must tell 
him he ought not to come quite so often, or 
some one that I could mention will begin to 
feel jealous. Don’t you think so, my dear?” 

And Mrs. Balmain glanced brightly toward 
Matilda, then downward to that young lady’s 
5 engaged finger. No ring there yet, and the 
j Festival with its attendant opportunities over 


three months ago. Matilda understood the 
glance, but she was not in the least disconcert- 
ed. She knew herself, and she knew Mr. Arm- 
strong, and she was sure that nothing but his 
overmodesty, carried in this case perhaps a lit- 
tle too far, prevented him from appropriating 
so great a favor as her undivided heart. 

“I really don’t think any thing about it,” 
she replied, toying carelessly with a piece of 
wool-work; “but I am delighted if poor Mr. 
Armstrong has found another place where he 
can enjoy himself a little. You know one does 
not like to have every night filled up with friends 
dropping in in that way, and it really is a re- 
lief to have an evening to ourselves occasional- 
ly. I wonder he did not begin to come to you 
long ago. He is a man that is fond of society, 
and he likes people who have seen the world. 
That is why I am so surprised at his coming 
here as he does, when pa and Reginald have 
never been abroad. Whatever can he find in 
us ? Did I not say so, ma, only last night ?” 

“ My dear,” said Mrs. Ballinger, with that 
maternal complacency which sits so well on a 
middle-aged woman with plenty of handsome 
lace, “ Mr. Armstrong pleases himself. I al- 
ways let people do as they like. Poor fellow ! 
he knows there is a knife and fork ready for 
him whenever he comes.” 

Though really Mrs. Ballinger did begin to 
wish he would not be so slow in observing that 
something else was ready besides the knife and 
fork, or even the material upon which to exer- 
cise them. But she dismissed the subject. It 
was one which she did not prefer to discuss, es- 
pecially with Mrs. Balmain. 

“ I do not think,” she said, returning to the 
dinner, “ that Mr. Ballinger Avould have any ob- 
jection to meet young Monkeston. You know, 
Mrs. Monkeston behaved very rudely to him 
about the time of her husband’s death, when 
he offered to take the management of her af- 
fairs, and put the lad into the office ; but Na- 
than is a man who can afford to put such things 
on one side. His position is so thoroughly es- 
tablished now that he does not need to stand 
upon trifles like some people. ” 

This was intended as a delicate little reflec- 
tion upon Mr. Balmain, who had lately failed 
in obtaining a public office in the City, and be- 
tween whom, therefore, and the gentleman who 
had obtained it, there was a difference so bitter 
that the two objected even to meet on the neu- 
tral ground of social intercourse. 

“You see my husband,” continued Mrs. Bal- 
linger, “knows where he is, and what he is, and 
that makes such a difference, and other people 
know it, too. I have not the slightest doubt, if 
he thought it would help } r oung Monkeston to 
a better position in the place, he would meet 
him in society with the greatest pleasure. He 
always likes to encourage any one who is de- 
serving.” 

To a greater extent than this the purest 
philanthropy — even the philanthropy of Mr. 
Ballinger himself — could not be expected to 


116 


THE BLUE BIBB ON. 


go. Ilis wife, therefore, felt she had said all 
that could be said on the subject. Perhaps, 
also, she might have her own private views in 
the direction of Mr. Monkeston. If Mr. Arm- 
strong really, after all, did not come to the point 
before long with Matilda, and if Mr. Arncliffe 
had behaved liberally in that affair of the part- 
nership, which, judging from the abolition of 
the shop, he must have done, Roger might be 
cultivated to advantage. Every one knew 
what was the next thing when a young man got 
taken into partnership; he w r anted a wife, of 
course — the most proper thing, too ; and with 
Mr. Arncliffe getting into years, and an old 
bachelor, and so peculiar as every one said he 
was, there was really no telling what might hap- 
pen when he once began to take such a violent 
fancy to any one. Mrs. Ballinger said she 
should be quite ready to accept. 

Accordingly, Mrs. Balmain, who had been pur- 
suing exactly the same train of thought, except 
that one of her own daughters occupied the 
place assigned by the solicitor’s wife to Matil- 
da, issued invitations for a quiet little dinner 
early in January ; the guests to number five— 
Mr. and Mrs. Ballinger, Matilda, Mr. Arm- 
strong, and Roger Monkeston, who, with her- 
self, «Mr. Balmain, and Edie, would form as 
snug a party as Could be desired by even the 
most bashful young candidate for social honors. 

To her great surprise, Roger declined. Shy- 
ness, no doubt, poor young man ! and conscious 
inability to carry himself creditably through 
the ordeal. She would have him in quite alone 
some evening, and give him a hint or two which 
would be useful to him. But in the mean 
time she must ask a gentleman to fill his place ; 
and after reviewing the circle of her acquaint-' 
nnce, she fixed upon Mr. Arncliffe, who had 
met her husband at one or two scientific meet- 
ings in the City, and had invited him to go over 
the works. That was sufficient ground. Mr. 
Balmain had no objection to a further intimacy 
with the celebrated old astronomer, so he look- 
ed in one afternoon and gave the invitation. 

Mr. Arncliffe accepted — a somewhat unusual 
thing for him to do in respect of such invita- 
tions, his social festivities having, for the last 
few years, been confined to a cup of tea at the 
Monkestons, or a cigar with old Canon Boni- 
face. But he told Mr. Balmain honestly 
enough that ho should be glad of an opportu- 
nity of meeting Mr. Armstrong, and therefore 
he would put his other engagements aside for 
an evening, and come. 

For the weeks were passing, and Mr. Bal- 
linger made no further reference to that affair 
of the money, though he had promised to give 
it his immediate attention nearly two months 
ago. And if, during a chance encounter in the 
streets, it happened to be mentioned, he began 
to heave restlessly, like a steamer on the point 
of starting, churned up a commotion with those 
huge paddles of verbiage, which were always so 
ready for work, and then steered magnificently 
away, amidst a foam of excuses. Really he 


had been so pressed with engagements lately, 
such numbers of public meetings, committees, 
vestries, and so forth ; but he had made a note 
of the matter, and Mr. Arncliffe might depend 
upon its having his earliest attention. Indeed, 
he had once or twice been on the point of 
going over to Wastewood, or asking Mr. Arm- 
strong to drop in some evening to talk it over, 
but something or other had always interfered. 
However, in a few days, at the most — 

And Mr. Ballinger, waving his hand politely, 
departed. 

At last Mr. Arncliffe was tired of excuses, 
and meant to take the matter into his own 
hands. For this purpose he hatisset apart an 
evening to go over to Wastewood himself and 
hear what Mr. Armstrong had to say on the 
subject, wdien Mr. Balmain’s invitation placed 
the opportunity in his hands without the for- 
mality of a call. 

Mr. Ballinger, entering the doctor’s drawing- 
room in the solemn splendor of evening dress, 
was somewhat disconcerted to find at the far- 
ther end of it, apparently engaged in a very in- 
teresting conversation, the two men whom of 
all others he most wished to keep apart. He 
had come prepared to shed the light of his coun- 
tenance on a modest young man whom fortune 
was beginning to favor; top:. . back n 
successful mechanic, who, wlu youth, had | 
swept out his offices and lights, his fires * to j 
whom, moreover, he intended to Ltm. been a 1 
benevolent patron, had not circa; owwr I 

which he had no control ste’ . ' in between I 

him and that intention. c . i ’ . .id I 

Matthew Arncliffe and Stanley Armstrong elbow * 
to elbow in a confidential chat. Flint and steel 1 
striking each other were not more likely to kin- 
dle tinder than these two men were to drop a ”j 
spark into that old dishonesty of his, and light i 
up a fire with it which might one day drive him 
out of Cruxborough. 

But a guest in his friend’s drawing-room can 
not at once walk to the farther end of it, and 
separate the flint and steel which have come 
into dangerous collision there. He must needs 
stop by the way to chat with his host and host- 
ess, hear what they have to say concerning pol- 
itics, the weather, state of public health, and 
many other interesting topics ; then, perhaps, 
undergo an introduction or two, with its attend- 
ant little puff of small-talk, and pay a few com- 
pliments to the ladies, before taking steps for 
the rescue of his unfortunate little bit of tinder, 
if the spark has not meanwhile fallen into it. 

As was the case now, the astronomer and the 
colonial merchant having had at least half an 
hour of conversation before poor Mr. Ballinger 
could extricate himself for the purpose of shak- 
ing hands with them. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Arncliffe,” said the owner ( 
of Wastewood, when the two gentlemen had 
drifted into the desired subject, “but it strikes 
me I have seen you before. Where, I can not f 
for the life of me make out, but I certainly do ' 
know your face,” 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


117 


“ You were going to London, I believe, some 
; three months back,” answered Mr. Arncliffe, 

; “by the evening mail, and I happened to be in 
I the same carriage with you. I suppose that 
was it.” 

“Ah! so I was — going up to the winter 
sales, of course. I recollect it as well as can 

I be now ; and you were the little gentleman in 
the plaid — well, no, rfot in it exactly, for I be- 
■ lieve you gave it to that wretched - looking 
I woman that came in in such a scrimmage. 

I And that other fellow and I were talking about 
I. you, too. Really, one never knows what one’s 
I doing.” 

“All right,” said Mr. Arncliffe. “I heard 
nothing worse of myself than I knew already; 
but I did hear something that interested me 
very much about a matter that has been puz- 
zling me ever since. Maybe you can set me 
right about it now.” 

And then Mr. Arncliffe recalled the conver- 
I sation, together with the story relating to it, 

! which Mrs. Bratchet had told. Mr. Armstrong 
could say little more about it than his compan- 
ion had already heard. 

“ I remember my poor old uncle’s letter as 
■well as can be,” he said ; “and I wish I had 
kept it, if it would have been any satisfaction 
to you ; but of course I took no particular in- 
terest in it at the time. It never occurred to 
me then that I should come in for the property, 
! and so it was no consequence how my unefe 
chose to dispose of it. I know he said he had 
appropriated a certain number of shares — I 
can’t tell now how many — to the use of this 
family, the interest to be paid quarterly, or as 
it was needed ; and he seemed to think he’d 
done the right thing at last. Poor fellow ! it 
must have been very near the time of his death, 
now I come to think about it— not more, I 
should say, than a week or two before ; for I 
was up country looking after some property for 
a friend who was just dead, and I remember 
the date of that very well.” 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Arncliffe, more than ever 
convinced now of the truth of Patch’s story, 
“ that was the time. And that woman whom 
you have mentioned — who came into the car- 
riage, you know, after we had started — was 
servant to old Mr. Armstrong when he died, 
I and it was about a week before his death that 
he told her about the money, and only a few 
months ago she told it to this Mrs. Bratchet, 
who is now living in Cruxborough ; but she has 
this addition to what you have said, that the 
money was given in trust to Mr. Ballinger. 
That is what I should like to have cleared up.” 

“ I don’t remember Mr. Ballinger’s name be- 
ing mentioned. It may have been, and I have 
forgotten it. Could we get hold of the woman, 
and have her story from beginning to end ? 
That would be the most straightforward way.” 

“So it would; but, unfortunately, we can’t 
get hold of her. She was going to London 
that night, and no one has heard any thing of 
her since. Whether she is dead or alive we 


don’t know, and she has no friends about here, 
cither ; so you were the only person to come 
to. The reason I stir in the matter is this : 
the gentleman who was talking to you in the 
carriage had the impression that a heavy pre- 
mium had been paid to me with Roger Monk- 
eston, and you told him that a provision had 
been made for that purpose, which seemed to 
satisfy him. Now, no premium ever was paid 
to me, and Roger Monkeston tells me that no 
money was ever received by the family from 
Mr. Armstrong. Where is it, then, and who 
did get it? That’s what puzzles me. You 
know, when I find a knot I like to untie it ; 
that’s been my way all along, or I shouldn’t be 
where I am now. Knots of art or knots of 
science, it doesn’t matter which ; and this is a 
knot, I must say, which I should very much 
like to see my way into.” 

“You shall, too, Mr. Arncliffe, if I can give 
you any help.” 

That was the point which the two gentlemen 
had reached when Mr. Ballinger, with the 
blandest of smiles, came in between them.. 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 

A tew days later, Mr. Ballinger Avas sur- 
prised by a visit from his friend, Mr. Arm- 
strong. Well, perhaps not exactly surprised, 
since he had been expecting for some weeks 
past that the owner of Wastewood would re- 
quest the favor of a little private conversation 
with him, for the purpose of obtaining his sanc- 
tion to an affection which had now become the 
closest interest of his life. Mr. Ballinger had 
even jotted down a few heads of remarks which 
he intended to make on the occasion ; and had 
composed a most touching speech, expressive 
of the pleasure he felt in welcoming Mr. Arm- 
strong into his family as a son-in-law ; and he 
had several times rehearsed it privately, with 
the long fatherly shake of the hand which was 
to accompany its closing sentences. 

But Mr. Armstrong had not come to ask to 
be admitted into the family. Rather he had 
come to ask to be allowed to look through that 
splendid evergreen hedge, which for ten years 
had been broadening and thickening round Mr. 
Ballinger’s private affairs ; to look through it, 
moreover, at a point which commanded a most 
undesirable prospect — the prospect of a rub- 
bish-heap, for which its owner might be in- 
dicted as a public nuisance. The proprietor 
must look about him, put up his screens, pro- 
test as politely as he could against any infringe- 
ment upon his rights, and, if needful, warn oft’ 
trespassers who did not come there by due au- 
thority of the higher powers. 

Mr. Armstrong’s errand was soon told. Did 
Mr. Ballinger recollect having an interview 
with Mr. Hiram Armstrong, of Wastewood, 
about ten years ago — in fact, just before that 
gentleman’s death ? 


118 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


Mr. Ballinger looked up to the roof of his 
office, down to the floor of it, out to the win- 
dows of it, buried his hands in his pockets, as- 
sumed an air of profound abstraction, as if the 
turning up of that particular bit of wreck among 
the accumulated drift-wood of memory was, for 
the present, all-important; then beamed be- 
nevolently down upon his visitor. He was 
exceedingly sorry ; he really could not charge 
himself with any such interview — in fact, so 
many absorbing interests had arisen in the 
mean time, and so many affairs of public life 
had crowded upon him, that his recollections 
of a time so far back were in the highest de- 
gree apocryphal. Mr. Ballinger got hold of 
the right word this time. He was exceeding- 
ly sorry to disappoint his friend, but he must 
decline to commit himself to any thing which 
mightbe considered as evidence upon the subject. 

“Admirable,” thought Mr. Ballinger, when 
the sentence was concluded. “Screen thick 
enough to baffle the most vigilant inspector of 
nuisances; and that old witch of a woman, 
Patch, safely out of the way, too — dead, most 
likely, or swallowed up in the smoke and scum 
of London; or, with Mrs. Bratchet’s fifteen- 
and-sixpence in her pocket, hiding out of sight 
of the police, who, he hoped and trusted, would 
search long enough before they lighted upon 
her. Nothing could have been better.” 

Mr. Armstrong looked puzzled, but returned 
to the charge. Did Mr. Ballinger’s memory 
serve him, then, as to a transaction relative to 
some bank shares which had been transferred 
about that time ? 

Mr. Ballinger thought a while. lie must 
begin to tread softly now. It would not do 
to make any statement which the Martinet 
ledgers, unbribable and unalterable, might 
falsify. And yet he must say something, if 
he' could, which would prevent Mr. Armstrong 
from having recourse to them. 

Yes, he did remember purchasing some 
shares which Mr. Armstrong wished to get 
rid of. In fact, he might say it was a little 
private arrangement between them, and he 
took them entirely as a matter of accommo- 
dation, knowing that the owner of them was 
anxious to realize some of his capital just 
then. But as to the amount paid, or the 
circumstances of the transfer, he really could 
not take upon himself to give any information, 
so many other more important events having 
taken place in the interval. 

“Of course the bank-books would settle 
that,” Mr. Armstrong suggested. 

Mr. Ballinger preferred that the bank-books 
should not settle it, because they might settle 
other things at the same time, which would be 
much better unsettled. And so he promised 
that if Mr. Armstrong left the matter in his 
hands, he would refer to his accounts of that 
date, and give him a satisfactory statement. 
It would simply be a question of trouble. Mr. 
Armstrong need not apologize in the least ; he 
should only be too delighted to take it. 


And could Mr. Ballinger remember, then, 
persisted this indefatigable inquirer into nui- 
sances, if, in connection with that transaction, 
any money had been set apart for the use of 
the Monkestons, any sum of interest appointed 
to be paid to them, any indemnification, if it 
might be so called, for injury supposed to have 
been inflicted on the elder Monkeston. 

“Well, really, my dear sir” — and Mr. Bal- 
linger made a desperate attack with his sharp 
gray-green eyes upon a particular spot in the 
oil-cloth, as if determined to discover all about 
every thing there — “I am uncommonly sorry 
but I am really quite unable to give you any 
information which I could honestly consider 
reliable on the subject. If you could favor me 
now with the letter which your late respected 
uncle wrote, and in which he mentioned this 
matter to you, it might possibly recall to my 
mind the facts of the case.” 

“Unfortunately I can not do that,” said Mr. 
Armstrong. “ I destroyed it, along with a heap 
of other correspondence, some years ago, before 
I thought it would ever become of any value. 
My only dependence is upon my memory and 
your own.” 

Mr. Ballinger bowed. That was just as it 
ought to be. 

“Dear me ! a great pity ! You see, a writ- 
ten document would have made all the differ- 
ence in a matter like this. If I could have 
seen the late Mr. Armstrong’s own expres- 
sions, I could possibly, by a strong effort of 
retrospection, have produced something like 
a remembrance of the circumstances ; but at 
present I must confess my utter inability to 
do any thing of the sort. If I might trouble 
you to step in again, in the course of a few 
days, or, stay, if you would do us the favor 
to dine with us at the beginning of the Aveek, 
Ave will thoroughly ventilate the subject, and 
I Avill endeavor to satisfy the anxiety Avhich 
you very properly feel to acquaint yourself with 
the intentions of your lamented uncle. Be as- 
sured, my dear sir, that I fully sympathize Avith 
your desire to do justice to his memory, and 
to carry out any plans which he might have 
conceived ; and it would be a great gratifica- 
tion to myself — indeed, I think I may be al- 
lowed to say it Avould afford me the most su- 
preme pleasure, to knotv that I had been of 
the least benefit to you in the prosecution of 
an undertaking Avhich reflects equal credit upon 
your honor and affection.” 

And having thus got the paddles in motion, 
Mr. Ballingerloosed his moorings, and steamed 
atvav to a more com r enient topic. 

After a little more chat, Mr. Armstrong took 
his leaA-e; but he did not let the matter drop. 
Next day he Avent to the bank. There he had 
less difficulty in getting to the root of the mat- 
ter. He found that on a given date a certain 
number of shares, duly numbered and regis- 
tered, had been transferred from his uncle to 
Mr. Ballinger. The time Avas exactly one 
Aveek before Mr. Armstrong’s death. That co- 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


119 


incided with the evidence he had in his uncle’s 
letter. The testimony of Patch, also — at least 
so much of it as could be brought forward — 
was to the same effect. The bank-books 
proved that the shares had been transferred to 
Mr. Ballinger; his own letter proved that Mr. 
Armstrong had intended to make this transfer 
in the interest of the Monkestons, and Patch’s 
assertion supplied the missing link, that Mr. 
Ballinger had been the party to whom the car- 
rying out of this transaction was committed ; 
though, of course, without the woman’s direct 
testimony, it was impossible to draw out such 
a case as would justify legal proceedings. 

Things were beginning to look rather black 
against Mr. Ballinger now. That worthy gen- 
tleman, in such intervals as could be spared 
from professional engagements, and taking of 
chairs at charitable meetings, was considering 
how best to slip through the net in which un- 
fortunate circumstances had entangled him. 
Mr. Armstrong had spoken of going to the 
bank. Of course, if he did that — and he had 
given no promise not to do it — there was an 
end of every thing ; for the books bore witness 
to the transfer of the shares, and he must give 
an account of them. 

But there was still a loop-hole of escape. 
The books did not bear witness to the purpose 
for which the shares were transferred. The let- 
ter in which old Hiram had mentioned that pur- 
pose to his nephew was destroyed ; and Patch, 
the only person whose testimony could now di- 
rectly criminate himself, had, by a most merci- 
ful interposition of Providence, left the place. 
Where she was, no one knew ; and more time 
and money than the search was worth might 
be spent in finding her out. It would be per- 
fectly safe for him, then, to take his stand on 
the only firm piece of ground left to him now, 
namely, to declare that the shares were given 
to him by Mr. Armstrong as an equivalent for 
his professional services, and as a slight mark 
of respect for the friendship which had for many 
years subsisted between them. He could also 
say to the nephew, if further pressed upon the 
subject, that he believed, upon second consider- 
ation, there had heen a hint dropped as to some 
pecuniary help which might be advantageous 
to the Monkestons, and that he had offered to 
give that help by settling the affairs of the 
widow, and taking the boy into his office. But 
as both proposals had been at once declined, he 
considered that his responsibility was at .an end. 

There was one way left yet for Mr. Ballinger 
to save his dignity. He might have given up 
the shares, said that he had been acting under 
a wrong impression, and offered to restore the 
accumulated interest of the past ten years. 
That would have given him a right to face 
Mr. Armstrong with perfect confidence, but it 
would have deprived him also of a dividend 
amounting now to almost a snug little fortune; 
and Mr. Ballinger would rather look slightly to 
one side, when he met his expected son-in-law, 
than give up an income like that. So many 


pounds a year was a heavy price to pay for the 
privilege of looking a man in the face. That 
admission about the possible claims of the 
Monkestons was humiliating — admissions al- 
ways were so ; but still they involved nothing 
but loss of dignity, and a man might sustain 
worse losses than that. By taking advantage 
of this side wind, and tacking judiciously round, 
Mr. Ballinger could keep the whole of the mon- 
ey in his possession ; and if there did happen to 
be a little awkwardness at first, it would soon 
tide over. At any rate, it need not interfere 
with the amicable relations between himself 
and Mr. Armstrong, nor the matrimonial con- 
nection which he hoped might before long be 
established as the result of six months’ unlim- 
ited hospitality toward that gentleman. 

So when old Hiram’s nephew came again, 
Mr. Ballinger received him with the utmost 
cordiality. He had given the subject a very 
careful consideration, and he was now prepared 
to give his friend such an explanation of the 
facts as would at once and forever set his mind 
at rest thereupon. Then followed the expla- 
nation as aforesaid, given in Mr. Ballinger’s 
most eloquent and impressive platform style, 
with suitable pauses for sips of cold water and 
rounds of applause. 

The applause did not come, for Mr. Arm- 
strong listened with somewhat incredulous po- 
liteness ; but if it failed, there was no outward 
manifestation either of discontent. A gentle- 
man’s word was not to be questioned, especial- 
ly the word of a gentleman who had so courte- 
ously entertained him, and whose position in 
the town was so abundantly fortified by public 
esteem. 

But Stanley Armstrong did not accept Mr. 
Ballinger’s next invitation to dinner. 


CHARTER XLIX. 

Instead of accepting it, he went to have a 
cigar with Mr. Arncliffe and Roger Monkeston 
at the Woolsthorpe works. He there explain- 
ed the state of affairs, >vhich, in default of fur- 
ther proof, he left where they were. There 
had been wrong dealing somewhere, though it 
was impossible now to bring it home to the 
culprit. Without a doubt Mr. Ballinger had 
appropriated to his own use money intended 
for the benefit of Ralph Monkeston’s son. 
That was clear enough, so far as circumstan- 
tial evidence could make it clear, and for the 
rest they must be content to wait. 

As for Roger he did not care to go further 
into the case. He had made his own way 
without help from Mr. Ballinger; he knew his 
mother’s proud independence, and he also 
scorned to pay himself out of an injury that 
had been done to another. He and his sister 
preferred having no further inquiry made. 
They had enough ; they were content. 

So was Mr. Arncliffe, now that justice had 


120 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


been done to his friends ; and there the mat- 
ter might have ended if Mr. Armstrong had 
not talked it over with Mr. Balmain at the 
next committee upon which the two gentlemen 
met. Mr. Balmain talked it over with his 
wife, and his wife talked it over with Edie and 
Gracie; and the end of it all was that Mr. 
Armstrong came much more frequently than 
heretofore to have a game at chess or a rubber 
of whist with the doctor and his family. And 
if sometimes during these pleasant little even- 
ings that very curious affair of Mr. Ballinger’s 
came under consideration, and if Mrs. Balmain 
gave it as her opinion that extravagance might 
be carried a little too far, and if the doctor in- 
timated that, for his part, he thought five-and- 
twentv per cent, rather a risky rate of interest 
to build so much display upon, and if now and 
then a remark was dropped about the excellent 
match-making capabilities of Mrs. Ballinger, 
or Miss Matilda’s overevident anxiety about a 
suitable settlement, such little drifts in the cur- 
rent of conversation were abundantly natural, 
and quite what might have been expected un- 
der the circumstances. 

And then, although Mrs. Balmain very much 
respected her dear friend Mrs. Ballinger, never 
omitted calling upon her at proper times, asked 
her to dinner four times a year, w'ould not on 
any account have wounded her feelings by cop- 
ying the cut of her dress or the trimming of 
her bonnet, or ordering a mantle from Madame 
Rarasuti after the pattern of one that had been 
sent to the Portman Road, still it was not like- 
ly that she could rest long in the possession of 
facts involving the character of a man of so 
much importance in Cruxborough as Mr. Bal- 
linger, without mentioning the matter to one or 
two of her most intimate acquaintances in the 
strictest confidence ; not with the least inten- 
tion of malice — Mrs. Balmain was thankful to 
say she had never, in the whole course of her 
life, been pointed at as a malicious woman — 
but merely for the sake of trying how the thing 
would look when placed under the microscope 
of friendly criticism. And so it came to pass 
that, in less than a month after that unfor- 
tunate little dinner at the doctor’s house, all 
Cruxborough knew as much as could be known, 
and probably a great deal more than was really 
true, of Mr. Ballinger’s delinquencies. 

Discreditable, very discreditable, for a man 
in his position. He ought to have known bet- 
ter. But they were not surprised. It was a 
singular fact that the people in Cruxborough 
never were surprised when their neighbors did 
wrong. They were not at all surprised. When 
a family all at once made such a wonderful 
spring, indulged in such display, and launched 
out to such an extent, it was quite natural that 
the head of it should be led into underhand 
ways of keeping up appearances. Ugly reports 
had been flying about for some time, and no 
winder, either. Poor Mrs. Ballinger! they 
should think she would not hold up her head 
quite so high now, would not sail quite so ma- 


jestically into church with her silks and her sat- 
ins and her flounces. Pride must have a fall, 
and hers was a fall that would bring a good 
many bruises with it, no doubt. For, that her 
husband had been clever enough to manage 
matters so that nothing could really be proved 
against him in a court of law, only made his 
conduct more disgraceful. And to have done 
it to the widow and fatherless, too ! those who 
were in a special manner committed to his sym- 
pathies ! 

And Cruxborough held up its hands in pious 
horror ! It was always so ready to espouse the 
cause of the widow and fatherless when indig- 
nation was the only betrothal-ring needed for 
that purpose. 

By-and-bv Mrs. Balmain found that, if she 
wished to keep up her position in the place, 
she must really drop the Ballingers. People 
were talking so very freely. Her friends posi- 
tively objected to meet them in society. Be- 
fore Mrs. Daylish, the rector’s wife, accepted 
for an evening party at the doctor’s house, she 
called and asked point-blank if the Ballingers 
were to be there ; because, if they w T ere — Mrs. 
Daylish looked, and said no more. 

And Mrs. Benfield, who happened to be call- 
ing one morning, when Matilda dropped in as 
usual, gracious and patronizing, took her leave 
shortly after in a very marked manner. Some- 
thing must be done, and done at once, too, for 
Mrs. Balmain could not afford to lose her 
friends in that way. Her husband’s position 
also, required consideration. It was her duty 
to consult his interests as well as her own. A 
medical man was obliged to be so very careful 
as to the society he cultivated. And then, the 
Ballingers seemed so perfectly unconscious of 
their altered circumstances. Mrs. Ballinger 
made as great a display as ever with her satins 
and feathers, and Matilda put on as many airs 
and graces as if she were actually engaged to 
marry one of the wealthiest men in Cruxbor- 
ough. Which Mrs. Balmain scarcely thought 
would ever be the case now, for, to her own 
certain knowledge, Mr. Armstrong had de- 
clined his last invitation to Portman Road, and 
that did not look very much like an engage- 
ment. 

Did Mrs. Ballinger know, she wondered, 
what every one was saying about her? If not, 
perhaps it would only be kind to tell her. The 
poor woman would consult her own interests 
more, and those of her daughter, by retiring a 
little from public view. Not, of course, that 
she was to blame for her husband’s short-com- 
ings — Mrs. Balmain would not say that ; still, 
perhaps if she had not been so ostentatious in 
her manners, so determined to make a position 
in the place before Matilda was introduced, 
Mr. Ballinger might not have been so strongly 
tempted to meddle with what belonged to oth- 
er people. 

And then that young ape of a son, too, who 
they said was engaged to Captain Deveron’s 
daughter. But most likely that would blow 


TIIE BLUE RIBBON. 


over now. Mrs. Ballinger need not have look- 
ed so jealously upon his frequent visits to the 
doctor’s house, after dear Edie came home 
from that finishing-school in London. Indeed, 
Mrs. Balmain thought Reginald’s mother would 
he very thankful now to see him married into 
a respectable family at all. And, for her own 
part, she was glad that attachment, if it ever 
was an attachment, had come to nothing, for 
Mr. Armstrong had been so very marked in his 
attentions lately that there was no longer any 
mistaking what he meant; and for her own 
part she really must say she should enjoy being 
able to tell Mrs. Ballinger of an engagement in 
that quarter. Perhaps it would do as much as 
any thing toward taking down the good lady’s 
pride. 

Mrs. Balmain was graciously permitted to 
do so. About a couple of months after the 
first mention of that bank affair, she dressed 
herself in a suitable manner, and went out for 
a round of morning calls. Of course the chief 
subject of conversation during most of them 
was this rumored dishonesty on the part of one 
of Cruxborough’s most respected citizens. Va- 
rious little cloudy hints and suggestions were 
put together, until poor Mr. Ballinger’s con- 
duct showed very blapk indeed, worthy almost 
of legal punishment, if only suitable proceed- 
ings could have been taken against him ; and 
by the time Mrs. Balmain arrived at the house 
in Portman Road she felt that she was doing 
an act of charity by at all allowing the light of 
her presence to fall upon a family whose re- 
spectability was now, to say the least of it, so 
very dubious. 

This consciousness gave a slight air of digni- 
ty to her manner, which was not agreeable to 
Mrs. Ballinger. That lady had heard nothing 
of the unpleasant reports, which were floating 
about from friend to friend, under cover of the 
strictest confidence. As yet she had only no- 
ticed the somewhat poverty-stricken appear- 
ance of the card-basket on her hall table, and 
the lengthening intervals which elapsed between 
Matilda’s evening engagements. Also, they 
had both of them remarked the rarity of Mr. 
Armstrong’s visits; but that was business — 
nothing but business. He had been attending 
the London markets, and that had taken up a 
great deal of his time. 

“I know I ought to apologize,” said Mrs. 
Balmain, coming in with a pleasant air of pat- 
ronage. “It is really shameful of me not to 
have called ever so long ago ; but, you know, I 
have such quantities of engagements now, they 
become quite oppressive. I tell my little Edie 
I will not have her make herself so attractive, 
and involve me in such shoals of company. But 
it is her first season, you know, and girls will be 
girls. Are you very much crushed with parties 
this winter, my dear?” 

And Mrs. Balmain smiled sweetly upon Ma- 
tilda, who, she knew well enough, had not been 
asked anywhere for a month — at least, not into 
any good society. But, then, Matilda was a 


121 

girl who wanted putting down. Mrs. Balmain 
would not have done it to any one else. 

“ Not so very much,” said Matilda, gracious- 
ly. “You know, we see so much company at 
our own house. Reginald brings all his set 
here ; and now that the regiment is likely to be 
removed soon, we are constantly having them. 
I tell him sometimes the place is just like a 
mess-room. But, you know, the officers are 
all so fond of him, it is really very flattering.” 

“Exactly so, my dear. I believe military 
men are always very open-hearted. They do 
not stand upon ceremony with each other. 
Has Mrs. Benfield called lately? I do think 
officers’ wives are so charming — they are al- 
ways such perfect gentlewomen.” 

“ I fancy not,” said Matilda, arranging some 
shaded wools for a rose-leaf. “Ma, dear, did 
we ever return Mrs. Benfield’s last call ? Do 
you know, I am afraid we have been frightfully 
rude to her. But then, when one has such a 
circle of acquaintances, what can one do ? I am 
sure I try not to overlook any one ; but it is really 
almost more than I can manage sometimes.” 

“I would lessen the circle, then, dear, if I 
were you,” said Mrs. Balmain. “ I do a little 
weeding of that sort myself every few years, 
or I should soon be overrun with people. I 
rather fancied, though, I had not seen you quite 
so often this winter. That -was a perfectly 
charming dinner at Mr. Dewar’s last week. 
Why in the world, dear Mrs. Ballinger, did 
you not accept ? I quite expected to meet 
you there, because I know Mrs. Dewar always 
makes a point of asking us together. And she 
is getting into such exceedingly good society 
now. You meet the best people in Cruxbor- 
ough there sometimes.” 

Cruel Mrs. Balmain ! for she had it upon the 
best authority that the Ballingers were never 
invited at all, Captain Dewar having heard of 
that disagreeable affair at the bank. But, then, 
Mrs. Ballinger had so often done just the same 
thing to herself, before her husband’s practice 
was fully established; and it was so pleasant 
to be able now to give a little bit of a thrust in 
return. 

“I think Cruxborough has been unusually 
gay this winter,” she continued, in the pleas- 
antest manner possible. “Augustus says it is 
because the people have their Festival dresses 
to wear out. He is always so comical, you 
know. Matilda, dear, you must have that quilt- 
ed satin petticoat made up at once — that blue 
satin one, you know, that you spoke of ordering 
from Madame Parasuti. The Dewars are hav- 
ing a party on the twelfth. Our notes came the 
day before yesterday. Of course you are go- 
ing. It will be the event of the season, they 
say. If I knew what you were going to wear, 
I would arrange Edie’s dress accordingly. I 
always think it is such a pity for girls to spoil 
each other, when a little consultation before- 
hand would make every thing right ; and you 
know Edie always gets close up to you every- 
where.” 


122 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


“ Yes,” said Matilda, with dignity. She was 
beginning to feel Mrs. Balmain’s call rather a 
nuisance, especially as they had heard nothing 
yet of the Dewar’s party. “ Poor Edie never 
shows to advantage alone. I sometimes think 
what a pity it is she has not a little more pres- 
ence and self-possession, though her complex- 
ion is certainly very pretty. But she may dress 
as she likes for the twelfth, so far as I am con- 
cerned, for I intend to remain at home. So 
much going out does not suit me. I was say- 
ing so to vou only the other dav, was I not, ma, 
dear?” 

“You were, darling,” said Mrs. Ballinger, 
complacently, but with just a little reserve of 
bitterness about the non-arrival of notes from 
Mrs. Dewar. “ You really must begin to take 
care of yourself. And you know, Mrs. Bal- 
main, I have such an objection to girls being 
hacked about so much. It makes people talk.” 

“Oh! there are other things than that for 
people to talk about,” said Mrs. Balmain, plum- 
ing up a little — as if she did not know what was 
proper for her daughters as well as any body 
else, and the whole city whispering of Mr. Bal- 
linger’s disgrace ! “ If people will talk, I say, 

let them do it ; but my girls shall enjoy them- 
selves all the same.” 

“ Of course. And where an early settlement 
is desirable, it makes a difference. But when 
a girl’s advantages are such that she can afford 
to choose for herself, I always disapprove of 
indiscriminate visiting. I wish Matilda to be 
very careful.” 

“ Well, perhaps you are right ? only we used 
to meet you so constantly at the Dewars dur- 
ing Matilda’s first season — let me see, how 
many years ago? but, as you say, some girls 
can afford to wait. The Benfields are going a 
great deal into society, too, just now. She en- 
joys it so, you know. But I must say I was 
surprised when she told me she had declined 
your last invitation. I thought Mrs. Benfield 
would go anywhere for the sake of a little 
amusement, and I know she dotes upon Mr. 
Armstrong — she says he is so funny. But 
perhaps she is beginning to find she must be 
careful, too. Augustus says, if he were Mr. 
Benfield, he should be quite jealous. All non- 
sense, of course, you know ; we understand 
Mr. Armstrong a great deal too well for that. 
Indeed, if Augustus had not had the fullest 
confidence in him, he would never have thought 
of giving his consent.” 

“ Of course not, ’’said Mrs. Ballinger, vague- 
ly, not catching the other lady’s meaning. “A 
medical man ought to be so very careful ; and 
when a practice has only lately been got to- 
gether. You see, it is so different with my 
husband ; he stepped into a concern ready-made 
for him, as you may say— for the Spragues were 
the first solicitors in the place, more than thirty 
years ago — and there was his position at once. 
Although, you know, when Mr. Balmain has 
established himself, he can do what he likes.” 

“Well, not quite , I hope,” said Mrs. Bal- 


main. “ I hope Augustus will always remem- 
ber that character requires keeping as well as 
making. . It would perhaps be well,” she add- 
ed, with a sigh, “ if we could all bear that in 
mind. It is not well to trust too much to the 
past.” 

Here Mrs. Balmain paused for her pretty little 
bit of moralizing to take effect. If a whisper 
of any sort had reached the poor things, now 
was the time to avail themselves of her kindly 
sympathy. But Mrs. Ballinger looked as com- 
placent as ever, and Matilda, carelessly toying 
over that shaded rose-leaf, manifested not the 
smallest consciousness of any thing disgraceful. 
Curious! But some people never would own 
to their misdeeds. However, it was no con- 
cern of hers ; she would say what she had to 
say, and then wish her friends good-morning. 

“But it is all settled now,” she continued, 
briskly ; “ find I hope and trust, for dear Edie’s 
sake, it is for the best. He is really a very 
kind-hearted man, though not, perhaps, quite 
so polished as one might wish. You know, 
we have had every opportunity of becoming 
acquainted with him, for he has been, as I may 
say, almost at home in the house for the last 
three months ; and of course it was easy to see 
how it would end, though still such things al- 
ways do come upon one rather suddenly at the 
last. But, Matilda, my dear, I don’t believe 
you have the least notion of what I am talking 
about, and I came on purpose to tell you my- 
self, for I said you should not hear it from any 
one else. And so intimate as you and dear 
Edie have been ever since you left school, I was 
so sure that you would be delighted to hear 
that the dear child has the prospect of being 
settled so very comfortably ; and knowing Mr. 
Armstrong so well, too.” 

Matilda began to divine now the object of 
Mrs. Balmain’s visit, and she felt as people of 
even the commonest sensibilities must be sup- 
posed to feel when an overofficious neighbor 
draws up her blinds and calls upon them to ad- 
mire, from her windows, a prospect which they 
thought w r as commanded exclusively by their 
own. But the self-possession which had been 
instilled into her by a Erench governess at 
eighty pounds a year served her well upon the 
present trying occasion. With a gracious calm- 
ness, which could not have been surpassed had 
her own engagement been the subject of con- 
versation, she presented her congratulations to 
Mrs. Balmain. 

“Dear Edie ! I am sure she will be so glad. 
Indeed, you know, it is what I have been ex- 
pecting for the last few weeks — indeed, ever 
since we gave Mr. Armstrong to understand 
that we did not care for such very frequent 
visits from him. You know, though he is very 
wealthy, and all that sort of thing, still he is 
not quite equal to the set that Reginald is gath- 
ering round him now r ; and so we thought we 
had better let him understand in time. But 
for Edie it is every thing that one could wdsh.” 

Matilda knew well enough that the best w r ay 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


123 


to cheapen a neighbor’s prospect is to say that 
you had it yourself, but preferred throwing out 
a window in another direction ; especially when 
your neighbor’s window has no frontage to- 
ward that quarter. 

“And I hope,” continued Matilda, “she will 
be very happy ; although, you know, I am just 
a little bit surprised at her caring to be mixed 
up with trade in that way. But did I not say, 
ma, when we hinted to Mr. Armstrong to dis- 
continue his visits a little, that I should not be 
a bit surprised if he transferred his attentions 
to Edie?” 

“You did, my dear; and I am sure Miss 
Balmain has our very best wishes. Pray tell 
her so, Mrs. Balmain, from me, and say we are 
delighted to hear of it ; though, I dare say, she 
is happy enough now to do without the con- 
gratulations of her friends. Young ladies are 
so sometimes, in such circumstances.” 

“And say, too,” added Matilda, “that I 
think she ought to have come and told me 
about it herself. So intimate as we have been, 
you know.” 

“Well, my dear, to tell you the truth, I be- 
lieve’ she was rather afraid of you — indeed, I 
told her myself I did not know what you would 
say to her when you heard it, because we al- 
ways used to think Mr. Armstrong had attrac- 
tions in this direction; and sometimes there is 
just a little bit of feeling between girls — espe- 
cially as we have heard you set down more than 
once as the probable mistress of Wastewood. 
Such a pretty place, dear Mrs. Ballinger ” — and 
Mrs. Balmain turned to that lady — “an entire- 
ly new suite of drawing-room furniture, order- 
ed in only last week, amber satin ; and a hun- 
dred-guinea piano from Broadwood. Mr. Arm- 
strong is passionately fond of music, you know. 
I declare he will wear poor Edie out with mak- 
ing her sing to him. I am obliged to take him 
in hand sometimes, and make him do a little 
gossip with me instead. Oh ! and that re- 
minds me,” continued the voluble lady, who 
had the conversation chiefly in her own hands 
now — “ that reminds me of such a curious story 
I heard the other day, about old Mr. Arm- 
strong — Stanley’s uncle, you know.” 

Matilda rather winced at that “Stanley.” 
Mrs. Balmain meant she should. What had 
she come to the house for, but to take down 
that young lady’s pride a little? “They say 
he put aside a lot of money for the use of the 
Monkestons, which they have never had. Mr. 
Ballinger was somehow mixed up with it, but 
I can’t exactly say how. It is rather strange 
you should never have heard any thing about 
it ; but there may be nothing in it, after all. 
People will talk, you know. I will ask Stanley 
to come in some evening and tell you what he 
knows, if you like.” 

“ Oh, thank you ; pray don’t take the trou- 
ble,” said Mrs. Ballinger, loftily. If Mrs. Bal- 
main meant to be patronizing, the sooner she 
discovered her mistake the better. “Mr. Arm- 
strong knows that he can come in whenever 


he likes, without the formality of an invitation. 
We left him that privilege when the incessant 
visiting was dropped. Perhaps, though, Edie 
would feel more comfortable if the intercourse 
ceased entirely. Young ladies are a little jeal- 
ous sometimes.” 

“ Oh dear, no, nothing of the sort. I fancy 
if there is any jealousy at all it will be on the 
other side. It is not the first offer Edie has had, 
you know ; and if she had declined it, it would 
not have been her first refusal either. And, 
by-the-bye, that reminds me again, I suppose 
we shall be hearing of Mr. Reginald’s engage- 
ment before long. They say he is still very 
attentive to Captain Deveron’s daughter. Rath- 
er high people, are they not ? Tremendously 
exclusive, and all that sort of thing.” 

“I believe so,” said Mrs. Ballinger, appro- 
priating what she considered a compliment to 
her son’s choice. “I hoped Reginald would 
never look beneath his own, station for a wife, 
and he has not disappointed me. There is 
nothing like young people considering their 
position.” 

“Nothing at all, Mrs. Ballinger, while it 
lasts. I think myself that there is nothing so 
important as character and position, and to be- 
have so that people jiave no right to talk about 
you. But I think I ought to be going now.” 

And Mrs. Balmain took her leave, feeling 
that she had made a very successful visit ; be- 
cause really it was no use, unless sometimes you 
did put people in their places a little. 


CHAPTER L. 

• 

The weeks went on. Nothing more was said 
about those bank shares, but it soon became 
generally known all over Cruxborough that Mr. 
Ballinger had acted very dishonorably about 
them — so dishonorably, indeed, as to make it 
unpleasant for other gentlemen to hold much 
intercourse with him. The consequence was 
that very few platform tickets were sent now to 
the office in the High Street, and Mr. Ballin- 
ger scarcely ever received obsequious notes, re- 
questing him to take the chair at public meet- 
ings, or asking, as a great favor, that he would 
speak to sundry resolutions for advancing char- 
itable interests in the city. In one word, the 
solicitor found himself nowhere. 

But the shares were in a much better posi- 
tion than that. No direct evidence could be 
brought forward to invalidate his claim to them ; 
no witness remained to testify to old Hiram’s 
intentions respecting them. Patch’s disap- 
pearance, and Mr. Armstrong’s happy plan of 
destroying family correspondence, had made 
every thing safe. True, Mr. Ballinger felt he 
w’as a marked man ; but then riches are a de- 
fense, for some people, even against the poi- 
soned shafts of suspicion ; and neither averted 
looks, nor studiously cold recognitions in the 
public streets, could touch that splendid divi- 


124 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


(lend which a long course of successful specu- 
lation, first started by the possession of old Hi- 
ram’s bank shares, yielded now. Let his old 
friends pass him if they choose — let Cruxbor- 
ough charities find a new chairman, and its be- 
nevolent societies a more unexceptionable pres- 
ident — a man with two hundred shares in Mar- 
tinet’s bank could manage to live still, and rath- 
er comfortably, too. 

Fortunately for Reginald, soon after the af- 
fair became public talk, he was ordered to In- 
dia with his regiment, and so avoided sharing 
his father’s disgrace. At home it produced 
the result which disgrace generally does pro- 
duce in families knit together by no common 
bond of respect or sympathy. Mrs. Ballinger, 
finding she could no longer hold up her head 
in society on the strength ofolier husband’s po- 
sition, made the more vigorous effort to sus- 
tain herself by sumptuous entertainments and 
general extravagance of living, for which ex- 
travagance Mr. Ballinger, as the best atone- 
ment which could be offered for the discredit 
he had brought upon his w'ife, was expected to 
find the means. Mrs. Ballinger did not care 
to remind her husband of his dishonesty so 
long as he kept her purse well filled ; and Mr. 
Ballinger, on his part, found it advisable to 
purchase, with a liberal supply of housekeep- 
ing money, silence regarding the past. And 
so a sort of hollow peace was maintained be- 
tween them, and things were carried on as usu- 
al at the grand mansion on the Portman Road. 

Mr. Armstrong and dear Edic w’ere married 
the following April. No need for a long en- 
gagement, as Mrs. Balmain said to Captain 
Benfield’s wife, the families having been inti- 
mate so long, and Mr. Armstrong’s position 
being so well established. Edie, in white silk 
and orange blossom, made the prettiest little 
bride imaginable. Every thing went off charm- 
ingly. The Minster bells rang, flowers were 
scattered, presents poured in from all quarters, 
the Portman mansion excepted ; and after a 
tour on the Continent, the young people took 
possession of their home, with as fair a pros- 
pect of happiness as the most loving circle of 
friends could have desired for them. 

Mrs. Balmain was a triumphant mother-in- 
law. Now if Roger Monkeston, with his newly- 
achieved success and brilliant prospects, could 
only be drawn into the social vortex, and so 
initiated into the manners and customs of po- 
lite life as to become a suitable partner for 
golden-haired Gracie, she should feel her suc- 
cess complete. 

But, unfortunately, Roger could not be made 
to see the desirability of this new opening. He 
and Jean lived on quietly enough in that little 
house at the end of Bishop’s Lane, quite apart 
from dinners, dances, suppers, and all the oth- 
er small-ware of social life. Not quite apart, 
though, from its decencies and civilities. Rog- 
er had been up to London with Mr. Arncliffe, 
had been introduced into the society of a few 
literary and scientific men, who never stopped 


to ask whether he could enter and leave a room 
correctly ; had even attended one or two pub- 
lic dinners, and, stranger still, passed with per- 
fect propriety through every stage of the pro- 
ceedings. Cruxborough heard, too, that he 
had been courteously entreated by a few lead- 
ing members of the aristocracy who had a fan- 
cy for telescopes, and that sort of thing ; and 

report did say that when the Duke of , 

who was well known to have considerable sci- 
entific predilections, came through the city on 
his way to some great meeting in the West, 
young Monkeston took him over the Wools- 
thorpe works, explained every thing to him in 
Mr. Arncliffe’s absence,- and afterward had the 
honor of lunching with his Grace at the “ Crux- 
borough Arms.” 

If that was true, there was no telling what 
might be the next move upward. Evidently 
the Monkestons had taken their places in the 
reserved seats, and must be dealt with accord- 
ingly. 

It was astonishing how quickly that ducal 
luncheon obliterated the last lingering recol- 
lections of the ready-made linen shop, and 
how the reported touch of aristocratic hands 
washed out any suspicion of grease which 
might remain on those of Roger Monkeston. 
If Cruxborough could not be great itself, it 
could at least pay attention to those who had 
been in the presence of greatness. Roger, 
after that first visit to London with Mr. Arn- 
cliffe, and its pendant — the interview with the 
duke — might, if he had been so minded, have 
found himself at home in half the drawing- 
rooms of his native city. 

If he had been so minded. That was the 
difficulty again. For Roger’s life was his work 
now, not any fame or position it might bring 
him ; and all interest save that work and his 
6ister Jean lay folded away in those three lit- 
tle months when the finishing-room had been 
to him as an earthly paradise, and Gretchen 
the tree of life therein. 

That is not all a fable of the Red Cross 
Knight fighting with the huge dragon, and, 
sore wounded almost to death, falling close by 

“A trickling stream of balm most soveraine,” 

which gave him strength to arise, and gird , on 
his sword again, and conquer at last. Many 
a true-hearted man battling with disappointed 
hope has found in work, earnest, faithful, rev- 
erent work, the “virtuous balm” which could 
heal his wounds, and give him fresh courage 
for the conflict. So had Roger, in the short, 
sharp fight, whose wounds were upon him even 
yet. So had Jean, in the longer battle, which, 
through all her girlhood, she had waged with 
the dragon enemy of pain and weakness. And 
now, their foes dead beneath their feet, what 
remained for them both but to go cheerily 
forth to the palace where crowned rest await- 
ed them? And truly the way was not hard, 
for once that fight done, the worst of life is 
over. 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


Again there had come to that little home 
. under the Minster front the peace of the old 
days, before Gretchen’s presence had first glad- 
dened, and then darkened it. And with the 
i peace came the fair, sweet light of success. 

Well fought for, well won. And Jean had her 
: little social opportunities now and then with 
old Canon Boniface and his daughter, or the 
kindly organist, Mr. Grant, who enjoyed noth- 
ing more than a chat behind the creeping 
plants and crimson curtains of the bow -win- 
dowed room. And Roger’s work brought him 
i into communication with men of learning and 
culture, who, coming to Cruxborough to see 
I the now far-famed Woolsthorpe "works, found 
in the young man a bright, intelligent compan- 
ionship, which they were only too glad to cul- 
tivate. So that Mrs. Balmain’s previsionary 
“perhaps” seemed likely before long to sweep 
over a somewhat extended field of view. 

And still after dusk, when his work was 
done, Mr. Arncliffe would come away from 
those lonely rooms of his to watch Jean at her 
carving, or hear her play some quiet, soothing 
music ; and as he took her hand at parting, he 
would say sometimes, “Bless you, my child!” 
And then the fair soul which dwelt within 
those brown eyes would seem to come forth to 
him, and the two felt that they belonged to 
each other — that some day all would be well. 
That was Jean’s reward for her fight with the 
dragon. 

1 People noticed that Mr. Arncliffe did not 
hold himself quite so erect now, and that the 
fire "was beginning to abate in his keen gray 
eyes. lie had lived a toiling, unluxurious life. 
Many and many a night he had sat out in the 
cold, making observations for those wonderful 
moon pictures of his ; many a day he had giv- 
en himself neither food nor rest, when he was 
working at some intricate calculation, or watch- 
ing the progress of some scientific experiment ; 
and now these things were setting their mark 
upon him. With a strange tenderness, all the 
deeper for that she could tell so little of it in 
words, Jean watched him as through the long 
summer-time his strength gradually failed. 

“If I might only live to see it finished,” lie 
said to Roger one night, as they stood looking 
at the great telescope, which was slowly grow- 
ing to perfection under that tent in the court- 
yard. “ I should be glad to go then ; at least, 

1 I should not mind so much. One ought never 
to be glad to go out of a world where there is 
so much to learn. Come, Roger, let us have 
another walk round it.” 

They went. The old man examined every 
part, tried the different movements, adjusted 
the clock-work, and marked its slow, regular 
circuit. 

“I almost think another year will do it, if 
we can get the second lens cast properly. But 
if any thing should happen, Roger, you under- 
stand, don’t you ? You could carry the con- 
! tract through ?” 

“ I should do my best,” said Roger, modest- 


125 

ly. “ I am not afraid. But I hope you will 
live to finish it yourself.” 

“I don’t know. I have felt lately as if I 
could not close my thoughts upon it ; but may- 
be, when the cool weather comes, I shall gird 
up a little.” 

He walked round again, laid his hand ca- 
ressingly upon the instrument, as if it had been 
a living creature. 

“A triumph of human intellect,” he said at 
last, slowly and thoughtfully — “a great tri- 
umph of human intellect. I am not so proud 
that I have done it myself as that the thing can 
be done ; that is why I rejoice. Do you re- 
member that other telescope, Roger — not so 
fine as this, by a long way, though — that I was 
making — let me see — eleven years ago, or more, 
when you were a little lad looking in at those 
gates, and I showed you over the works ; and 
when you came to the tent where the great in- 
strument was, you took your cap off to it ?” 

Roger smiled, but the tears were in his eyes 
all the time — tears for the life that had gone, 
tears for the life that was slowly going, even 
now. 

“I had faith in you from that time, Roger. 
I felt that you were one of us, a prince of the 
blood royal. They say it’s only a born gentle- 
man who knows what true courtesy is, and so I 
say it’s only a born lover of science who knows 
what it is to feel a true reverence for what sci- 
ence can do. I call an instrument like that a 
sort of personification of the human intellect ; 
and the human intellect is a thing worth tak- 
ing one’s hat off to, though I never saw a lad 
do it before. Now we’ll go and have a look 
at that great lens, and then I must go in. I’m 
tired.” 

That was the last time old Matthew Arn- 
cliffe walked round the court -yard of the 
Woolsthorpe works. Next day he felt just a 
little weak, he said, and could only sit in the 
inner office for an hour or two, looking over a 
few tables of figures. Next day he thought he 
would rest all the time. 

“Maybe, if I give up for a while, I shall 
come out fresh again,” he said, when Roger 
came to him for orders. ‘ £ It’s better to stop 
in time, and give one’s self a chance. I would 
not care, if it were not for those lenses.” 

But the old man never, did come out fresh 
again. Very slowly and gradually the strength 
failed out of him. All through the autumn and 
winter time he sat in his little room, waiting for 
the returning power, which never came. His 
brain was clear and bright. He would work 
sometimes at the necessary calculations, or give 
directions respecting the work which was being 
done in the different rooms, or have instru- 
ments brought to him for examination ; but he 
never saw the great telescope any more. 

“I think,” he said to Roger, when the Feb- 
ruary days began to lengthen — “I think you’ll 
have to finish it. It seems to me as if I were 
getting deeper and deeper into the mud, in- 
stead of coming out of it, as Balmain told me 


126 


THE BLUE EIBBON. 


I should when the season began to turn. Not 
that I should have cared, if only my work was 
done ; hut one likes to wait till pay-day, and 
then come home and rest. I had reckoned, 
you know, on going to Baris the autumn after 
this next, and seeing it put up in the Observa- 
tory. And you should have gone with me. 
You’ll go by yourself now, most likely. But 
do your best, lad. Put into it the most perfect 
work that can be put. Don't do it for gain, 
but do it, as I would have done it myself, for 
the love of the thing. Go now. I want you 
to come to me to-morrow morning, and bring 
Jean with you.” 

They came. He was propped up with pil- 
lows in his bed, his scientific books and some 
instruments lying about him, the paper which 
he had read a few months ago before the Royal 
Society on a little table by his side. 

“I can’t read them, you know,” he said, 
pointing to the books, as he took Jean’s hand 
and drew her to him ; “ but I like to see them 
there. I’ve been trying to look over that pa- 
per, too. I could do it better now, if only I 
had a year or two longer. There is so much 
to find out on the subject, and our appliances 
are so feeble. Maybe my head will be a little 
clearer by-and-by.” 

“Don’t go out of my sight, Jean,” he con- 
tinued, as she was moving into the shadow of 
the curtain. Her voice trembled, her eyes 
Avere full of tears, for she saw in his face now 
what he, lying there so quietly from day today, 
perhaps scarcely felt — the slow oncoming of 
death. “ I like to see you. A friend’s smile 
does me good. What a glorious day! Fetch 
me my glass, Roger. I should like to have 
Just another look at the sun. It is in my in- 
strument drawer, in the inner office.” 

Roger brought it, fixed the dark glass, open- 
ed the window, placed the little telescope in the 
old man’s trembling, feeble hands. He had 
scarcely strength to hold it. 

“Ah !” he said, laying it down after a while. 
“That’s a fine cluster of spots passing over the 
upper limb of the disk. I wish I could have 
had time for a few more observations, and then 
to have rewritten that paper before they print 
it in the ‘Transactions;’ but you must give 
your attention to the subject, Roger. You will 
find a few memoranda in one of my desks— we 
will look them over together some day. There, 
take the glass away, and leave me with Jean a 
little while. The rest to-morrow.” 

Roger left them. In about half an hour he 
came back. Matthew Arncliffc lay as if he 
had slept, his gray head resting on Jean’s 
shoulder, his hands quietly clasped upon one of 
hers. But the light upon that grand forehead 
was “only daylight” now. 

She laid him gently back upon the pillow ; 
and as she kissed the folded lips, and reverent- 
ly covered the dead face of one of England’s 
great men, she said to herself, 

“It might have been.” 


CHAPTER LI. 

Upon the reading of Mr. Arncliffe’s will, it 
was found that, with the exception of a legacy 
of two thousand pounds to Jean Monkeston, 
and some annuities to his work-people, he had 
left the bulk of his property to Roger. 

A fine thing for the young man — a very fine 
thing, every body said, and quite what might 
have been expected under the circumstances. 
Most likely he would remove to London now, 
and keep up a regular establishment in Mr. 
Arncliffe’s Wimpole Street house, coming over 
to Cruxborough occasionally to superintend the 
works. And in a few months he would marry, 
and Miss Monkeston would live upon her own 
and her mother’s property in the little Bishop’s 
Lane house, as comfortable a home as a per- 
son in her position could wish to have. 

But Roger did nothing of the sort. Every 
thing went on as usual, except that he worked 
rather harder, and that the grave, thoughtful 
expression upon his face deepened instead of 
wearing away, as it should have done Avhen his 
temporal prospects brightened so wonderf Lilly. 
And the onslaughts of Cruxborough politeness 
still found him invulnerable in his steel mail of 
retirement. Volley after volley was fired in 
the shape of notes of invitation, calls, cards, or 
applications for permission to inspect the great 
telescope. The invitations he declined, the ap- 
plications he granted most courteously, send- 
ing one of the clerks to conduct his visitors* 
over the works, which was not at all what they 
wanted ; but no Cruxborough drawing-room 
ever numbered Roger Monkeston among its oc- 
cupants, and his social intercourse was, as here- 
tofore, almost entirely confined to an occasion- 
al raising of hats in the street. Quite enough 
for him, though, a ten years’ apprenticeship to 
his own society having made him rather inde- 
pendent of that which other people were at last 
willing to give him. 

And so the little world of Cruxborough life 
went quietly on, until Matthew Arncliffe had 
been dead a year and a half, and people were 
beginning to bestir themselves for the next Fes- 
tival, which was drawing very near. Mr. Grant, 
Gretchen’s kind old Kapellmeister, had been 
busy for many months over a new cantata, which 
was to be performed for the first time on the 
opening night of the Festival. It was nearly 
finished now; his choir had been practicing 
the choruses for some weeks past, and he was 
making arrangements with artists in Germany 
for the solo parts. 

Roger, on his part, had been equally busy 
over the great telescope, which was rapidly 
growing to perfection. The contract was with- 
in two months of expiration. At the end of 
that time he was to go to Paris himself, and 
superintend the mounting of the instrument; 
then go on to Berlin to attend some scientific 
meetings there, and perhaps bring home en- 
gagements for further work. Mr. Grant and 
he had arranged to make the journey together 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


127 


as far as Paris, from which place the Kapell- 
i meister would go on to Leipsic to see the di- 
rector of the Gewandhaus there, and perhaps 
| engage fresh singers for the Festival. 

But other things must come to pass first, 
j For it so chanced that, one rainy August after- 
noon, a dark-eyed, lean-faced woman got out 
of a third-class carriage at the Cruxborough 
station, and set forth with her one little bundle 
through the narrow streets. There was no 
welcome awaiting her, neither did it appear of 
much consequence whither she directed her 
steps. Coming past the Woolsthorpe works, 
she loitered for a moment or two at the iron 
gates, looking through to the long rows of win- 
dows, behind which she could see the machin- 
ery working, and the great lathe-bands mov- 
ing slowly to and fro. As she passed the “ Crux- 
borough Arms,” she paused there too, had a 
few words with one of the waiters, and then 
went toward the Minster, where the bells were 
chiming for afternoon prayers. The west door 
stood open ; the place seemed to offer her its 
shelter from the dripping rain outside. She 
was tired with her journey, hungry and worn 
out; so she turned in, sat down behind the 
shadow of an old canopied tomb, and, leaning 
her head on her bundle, was soon fast asleep. 

There was a short cut across Cruxborough 
Minster from the High Street to that part of 
the town which opened upon the Portman 
. Road; and of this short cut Mr. Ballinger, go- 
ing home to dinner, happened to be availing 
himself, when he saw the woman leaning for- 
ward, as he first supposed, in an attitude of de- 
votion ; but when he came nearer he found that 
the spirit of slumber, not of prayer, had taken 
possession of her. 

Now, though Mr. Ballinger’s position in the 
city was at present a somewhat uncomfortable 
one, and though he was no longer called upon 
to preside at public meetings, or urge the rising 
generation to worthy enterprise by holding up 
to them his own bright example, still there was 
a little of the old leaven left in him, a linger- 
ing remnant of that official dignity which, in 
the days of his importance, had made him so 
intolerant of any misconduct in the lower class- 
es. He could not even yet endure to see pov- 
erty misbehaving itself without trying to put 
it in its proper place ; and for a mean, ill-clad 
woman, with a disreputable-looking bundle on 
her knee, to be sleeping in Cruxborough Min- 
ster, was an offense almost requiring the arm 
of the law to be exercised upon it. Coming 
up to her, therefore, he administered reproof 
in the shape of an authoritative shake. 

“Wake up directly, my good woman, and 
go about your business. Are you aware that 
this is a consecrated edifice, and that parties 
misconducting themselves are liable to prose- 
cution ? Leave the place at once, or conform 
to the regulations enforced by the Dean and 
Chapter.” 

Patch raised herself slowly; opened her great 
hollow eyes, and faced round upon Mr. Ballin- 


ger with a wondering stare ; then, as she recog- 
nized the familiar features, a sneer curled the 
corners of her thin lips. But she took up her 
bundle nevertheless, and said, quietly, 

“I am going directly; I only came in to 
shelter from the rain.” 

And then she went toward the little east 
door, opposite Roger Monkeston’s house. 

Mr. Ballinger looked after her, took a few 
steps forward, paused, looked again, turned, 
and followed her. He remembered the wom- 
an only too well, and all the harm that she 
could work him by making her appearance in 
the place again. What evil chance had brought 
her there, now that the affair in which her evi- 
dence was required had begun to blow over ? 
How long had she been ? Who knew of her re- 
turn ? Something must be done at once, or all 
the old trouble would have to be gone through 
a second time. 

“My good woman,” he said, in somewhat 
blander tones, laying his hand upon her shoul- 
der just as she had reached the east door, 
“ will you wait a moment ? It strikes me that 
I have seen your face before.” 

“Very likely, sir,” said Patch, fronting him 
again with those fearless eyes, in which he 
seemed now to see a light of scorn. “ I lived 
servant with old Mr. Armstrong, of Waste- 
wood, when you used to come there.” 

“Ah ! yes — in fact, that was what I was en- 
deavoring to recall,” said the lawyer, with an 
appearance of benevolence. “And the world 
seems to have gone rather hardly with you 
since then, judging from appearances. Work 
scarce — times bad, I suppose, for poor people ?” 

“ I don’t complain, sir ; I am no worse than 
I was before.” 

“ You have been away some time, I think ?” 

“ Yes, sir, just about three years. I left last 
Festival.” 

“Ah ! indeed ; and have you been here long 
now ?” 

“No, sir; I have only just come from the 
station this afternoon. I am going to try if I 
can take up the lacquering again at Mr. Arn- 
cliffe’s works.” 

An expression of relief passed across Mr. 
Ballinger’s face, quickly followed by one of dis- 
satisfaction. Patch must not be allowed to 
take up work again in Cruxborough, if he could 
help it. She had had time to do no mischief 
yet ; so far all was well. If she could only be 
got quietly away, before any one knew of her 
re-appearance, all might continue well. But, 
things being as they were, the lacquering-room 
at the Woolsthorpe works was the very last 
place for her. If management of his could 
keep her out, she should never enter there. 
With a well-assumed appearance of concern, 
he said, 

“ I am exceedingly sorry. I am afraid you 
will find you have come on a fruitless errand. 
Mr. Arncliffe is dead, and the works have pass- 
ed into other hands.” 

“Mr. Arncliffe dead, sir?” and Patch’s 


123 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


countenance fell. “That is a pity; he was a 
good master to me. But perhaps I can get work 
all the same under the new gentleman.” 

“ I fear not, my good woman. The process 
carried on there now is entirely different. How- 
ever, as I believe you to be thoroughly honest 
and trustworthy, I will do what I can to befriend 
you. I happen to want some one to take care 
of my branch-office at Woodchurch, a little far- 
ther north, you know, and I should have no ob- 
jection to put you into the place at comforta- 
ble wages. You can go at once — to-morrow, 
if you like ; and my office woman here will give 
you a lodging for to-night.” 

“ I am much obliged to you, sir ; but I don’t 
know that I want to leave Cruxborough. I 
have had enough of fresh places to last me my 
life; and I think I had rather settle down 
where I have been before.” 

“ Oh, if you like,” said Mr. Ballinger, with 
an air of leaving the matter entirely in Patch’s 
own hands; “of course I do not wish to in- 
fluence you. But perhaps you have not con- 
sidered that the circumstances of your leaving 
Cruxborough three years ago were not such as 
to insure you immediate occupation now that 
you have returned. In fact, very unpleasant 
reports were in circulation, which — ” 

“I know what you mean, sir; and I’m will- 
ing to pay every body their own before I ask 
them to trust me again. I can’t do more than 
that.” 

“ Certainly not, my good woman,” said Mr. 
Ballinger, hastily. The subject was rather an 
unpleasant one to enlarge upon. “But if you 
take my advice, you will go where suitable oc- 
cupation is provided for you, instead of idling 
about here and spending what little money you 
may have in useless search for work. If you 
go on to my office, I will follow you shortly, 
and talk the matter over with you.” 

“I am not going to idle, sir,” said Patch, 
with her hand on the great iron latch of the old 
door. “That never was my way. I have al- 
ways earned my own living yet, and I will try 
to do it here in Cruxborough. But I thank 
you kindly for offering me a place. Maybe if 
I find I can not get employment here in a week 
or two — ” 

“Oh no, nothing of that sort. If you do 
not come at once, it is no use saying any thing 
about it,” Mr. Ballinger replied, hoping to star- 
tle his enemy into compliance by the need of 
immediate action. “ I have made you an ex- 
cellent offer, and I am willing to stand by it, if 
you are ready for work at once. Otherwise ” 
— for the unlucky man knew well enough that 
whatever harm Patch could do him might be 
done as effectually in a few days as during a 
year’s residence in the place, so that if she staid 
at all, the game was a lost one — “ otherwise I 
must withdraw my help, and leave you to shift 
for yourself.” 

Patch stood irresolute for a moment. It 
seemed more like an hour to Mr. Ballinger, 
who felt that his position in Cruxborough de- 


pended upon her decision. At last she pulled 
open the heavy door. 

“I am much obliged to you, sir — I will do 
what I can for myself.” 

And with that she went away. 

Mr. Ballinger watched to see if she went into 
Mr. Monkeston’s house. It was a great relief 
to him when she passed it, going down the lane 
toward the market-place. Something must be 
done, though. Either he must prevent the wom- 
an from remaining in Cruxborough — which ap- 
peared unlikely now — or he must contrive to 
frustrate any evidence which she might bring 
against him, by collecting facts to prove her of 
unsound mind. Perhaps that would be the 
best plan. Three years ago he could have 
done it easily enough. Almost any one would 
have believed him then, if he had raised doubts 
as to her sanity. Mr. Balmain would have sup- 
ported him, and the infirmary and union doc- 
tors, whom he had helped into their offices by 
his influence, would, with a hint from him, have 
given their opinion against her evidence being 
received in a court of law. Now it would not 
be quite so easy, but by some means or other 
it must be done. 

And, with a clouded brow aud an anxious 
heart, Mr. Ballinger went home to dine with 
such relish as was possible under the circum- 
stances. 


CHAPTER LII. 

Patch crossed the market-place, went into 
college yard, and walked direct to Mrs. Brat- 
chet’s door, which she opened without knock or 
warning. Mrs. Bratchet was standing behind 
her table, as usual, getting up a basket of starch 
things. She rather resented this sudden in- 
trusion upon her privacy, for she was a wom- 
an who had her own notions about household 
rights ; and seeing a dilapidated looking wom- 
an with a bundle, standing in the door-way, at 
first supposed her to be a beggar, or a new serv- 
ant from some of the hotels, bringing linen for 
the wash. 

“I’ll thank you kindly to knock, whoever 
you may be,” she said, “ next time you come. 
I’m nobbut a poor body, but my house is my 
castle, for all that ; and it isn’t to my likings 
that folks comes in without so much as with 
your leave nor by your leave. And maybe 
you’ll tell your errand and get you gone.” 

“It’s your fifteen-and-sixpencel’vebrought,” 
said Patch, walking straight to the table, and 
laying the money down. “I promised to my- 
self I would neither eat bread nor drink water 
in Cruxborough until I had paid it ; and there’s 
four-and-sixpence extra, to make up that I have 
kept it from you so long. That is my errand ; 
and now I will get me gone, as you tell me.” 

“Mercy on us!” said Mrs. Bratchet, fling- 
ing down her iron, “ if it isn’t Patch come back, 
as I’m a living woman ; and the money as I 
never thought to set eyes on no more — no, that 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


129 


I didn't. Well, to be sure ! But there’s never 
no telling.” 

And she gave Patch such a resonant kiss as 
that poor woman had not received for many a 
day. 

“It’s welcome home you are, honey,” she 
said, “and never a word about nothing as you 
took, which I won’t say but what it did pinch 
me a bit at the time, and soap that dear, as it's 
fell a good bit since. Get you gone, indeed ! 
nay, come your ways, and I’ll brew a cup o’ 
tea, and fettle a slice o’ bacon, and we’ll have 
it comfortable, as I don’t doubt you’re wanting, 
by your looks. You’re one of them sort as 
don’t feed up. Have you come from far ?” 

Patch had her story to tell, but Mrs. Brat- 
chet was not the first woman to whom she meant 
to tell it. So she only replied, quietly, 

“I have come from London to-day, and far- 
ther than that the day before, and I am tired 
now.” 

“ I should think you were, too, and a mercy 
you’re safe landed at last, which there’s a many 
isn’t ; and such a talk as never was when you 
went away, and a many wouldn’t have it but 
what the police was upon you, ’cause of the 
money ; but, says I to ’em, I knows Patch, says 
I, and she’s honest, if she’s nothing else. Not 
but what I was a good bit shook, for it stands 
to reason, being left that way, and no notice nor 
nothing, which wasn’t what I’d looked for from 
you ; but the fifteen - and - sixpence proves me 
&s I was right, and you don’t need to give me 
nothing over, for I don’t crave it. And so 
you’ve come back to settle yourself in Crux- 
borough again?” 

And Mrs. Bratchet swept an armful of things 
off the hard little sofa, drew it up to the fire 
before which her linen was airing, took away 
Patch’s bonnet and shawl, and began to “ fet- 
tle ” tea. 

“Yes,” said Patch, “I like Cruxborough 
best. I thought I would take up work again 
with Mr. Arncliffe, but I’ve heard he’s dead.” 

“Ay, bless him! He went as quiet as a 
lamb at the last, but he’d been dwining a good 
bit afore, and every body looked for it as it 
should come. And young Mr. Roger’s got the 
place now, and a fine thing, too, and carries it 
on just same ; and right glad he’ll be to get 
you back, I warrant, for I heard tell of his 
saying you was a good hand at your work, and 
kep’ the girls straight, which there’s a many as 
doesn’t do it.” 

“Oh! then I shall be all right. I will go 
and ask him first thing. . Mr. Ballinger told me 
the place had passed into other hands, and was 
carried on quite differently.” 

“ Mr. Ballinger, indeed !” and Mrs. Bratchet 
made an expressive grimace; “and where 
did you happen of Mr. Ballinger, I should like 
to know?” 

“In the Minster. I was very tired, and it rain- 
ed, so I went in there to rest, and fell asleep ; 
and some one shook me up, and when I looked, 
it was Mr. Ballinger, and he ordered me out.” 

9 


“ Ordered you out ! I should think so ! A 
likely man him to order any body out. He’d 
best keep hisself quiet, to my thinking.” 

“ He didn’t know who I was at first. After- 
ward he came after me, and asked me what I 
was going to do.” 

“Did he? Oh! I tell you what, Patch, 
you’re just about the last woman Mr. Ballinger 
wants in Cruxborough now. He’d rather have 
your room than your company a great deal.” 

“He was very good, though,” said Patch. 
“ He said he was afraid I should not be taken 
on again at the works, and he offered me good 
wages to take care of some offices of his at a 
place called Wood church, farther north, and he 
wanted me to go directly. He said the place 
would be ready for me to-morrow, and his of- 
fice woman here would take me in for to-night.” 

“Ay, ay, that’s him. He’d make a straight 
enough road for you out of Cruxborough, and 
a comfortable place for you not to want back 
again. Butter a cat’s paws, if it’s to settle well ; 
and he’d butter ’em thick, trust him. But don’t 
you be took in, Patch. And didn’t want no- 
body to set eyes on you — that’s where it is. I 
can see it as clear as daylight. There’s them 
in this town, Patch, as says Mr. Ballinger isn’t 
no better nor a thief and a robber, and it’s my 
belief they don’t read their lesson backward 
way, neither. But reach to, and I’ll tell you it 
while we have a drop of tea comfortable. It’s 
well you come to-night, for that’s the last of the 
bacon, and these here short-cakes is as sweet 
as nuts. I made ’em myself this morning. 
Would you like a drop of any thing else in it ? 
Say, if you would.” 

And Mrs. Bratchet pointed confidentially to 
the corner cupboard, where she kept her pep- 
permint cordial and a little bottle of gin, which, 
to do the good woman justice, was only put 
into requisition in extreme cases. 

“ No, thank you ; the tea is best. And I 
want to hear all about Mr. Ballinger. He is a 
man I never trusted.” 

“And you’d no need to. The story’s easy 
told. You remember telling me that queer tale 
about some money as old Hiram Armstrong, of 
Wastewood, wanted to put upon Mrs. Monkes- 
ton, to even it for some wrong he’d doue her 
poor husband ?” 

“ Yes, and you did not believe it. He told 
me himself he had given the shares to Ballin- 
ger, and he was to pay the interest to Mrs. 
Monkeston as it was wanted. And I can make 
you more sure now, for I went to London that 
night I left you, Mrs. Bratchet, three years ago; 
and Mr. Stanley Armstrong was in the same car- 
riage, talking to some one about Roger Monk- 
eston, and he said his uncle had written to him 
and told him about it ; so it was really so, and 
that money was the premium which was paid 
to Mr. Arnclitfe. Mr. Arncliffe was in the car- 
riage too, and he could have told you.” 

“Ay, honey, I’ve heard all about it. Mr. 
Arncliffe came here just a bit after, and out 
with it to Miss Jean, and she sent for me to 


130 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


say what you'd told me, and I overed it all to 
’em as clear as I could remember ; and Mrs. 
Monkeston, she never had no money; and there 
was never a penny come to Mr. Arncliffe for 
no premium ; and they’ve made it out now as 
yon Mr. Ballinger, for a nasty varmint as he 
is, kep’ it hisself, and here he’s been a-swelling 
out like a turkey-cock all these years, with what 
he'd no right to, and the poor missis, bless her, 
slaving and toiling to make ends meet. I’d 
wring his neck for him, ay, and that would I, 
if it was me could do it.” 

“But can’t they make him give the money 
up, if they know he got it?*’ 

“ Maybe they can, if you can get butter out 
of a dog’s mouth, but not without. For you 
see, honey, Mr. Armstrong he’s lost the letter 
as old Hiram wrote to him about it, and no- 
body knew Mr. Ballinger were mixed up with 
nothing, only what you said to me, so as he 
couldn’t be pulled up with the law ; and that’s 
why he don’t want you here ; and he’d trundle 
you out same way you come, if he could have 
his will. But I’d stop, if I was you, Fateh.” 

“I mean to,” said Patch, decisively. “I 
shall stop in Cruxborough now until the candle 
is burned out.” 

“ That’s like you, Patch. You were always 
such a one for looking on to the far end. But 
I telled you you’d got a good bit of work to do 
first.” 

“Yes, and I have done it,” said Patch, with 
a certain quiet resolution. “I would not have 
come back here if I had not done it.” 

“No, you haven’t. You’ve got to do some- 
thing with your candle first afore it’s burned 
out. — you’ve got to hold it up to Mr. Ballinger’s 
wickedness ; and it’s a pity you wasn’t here to 
do it from the first. I lay Mr. Armstrong 
won’t rest now while he’s got it all out of you 
what you know. They do say he’s that mad 
again Mr. Ballinger, he won’t go near hand 
them. Folks had set him down to the young 
lady, but I’ve a notion that ended it ; and he’s 
wed now to Miss Balmain, as I don’t see there’s 
much to choose between ’em, for as fond of 
dress as they are, and thinks of nothing but 
how they can toss theirselves oft*. There's them 
here says Mrs. Balmain would like young Mr. 
Roger for her t’other daughter, and axes him 
over and over, while one might see plain enough 
what it is she wants ; but he don’t look at no- 
body, he don't. I lay lie’s a-waiting a better 
turn. I always used to think as that poor 
young woman as took herself off promisctis to 
be a singer, might have had him if she’d had 
a mind to it ; for, to my knowledge, he was that 
set upon her, he followed her with his eyes, 
and would have kissed the very ground she 
walked upon — ay, and many’s the time I’ve 
knowed him come home with her from that 
there music, while as far as the college gate, 
but never no farther ; and he never was the 
one, wasn’t Mr. Roger, to do that sort of way 
when he didn’t mean nothing. But I’m not a 
woman as talks ; and I never let on about it to 


nobody, not while now. And then to think on 
her leaving ’em all like that, and never no mes- 
sage, nor nothing, the ungrateful hussy!” 

A strange, quick light came into Patch's 
face ; but she, too, was not a woman who talk- 
ed. By-and-by she began to put on her bon- 
net and shawl, and look round for her bundle. 

“ Nav, honey, you mustn’t go yet. I was 
looking for you to stop all night. There’s 
room for us both ; and you won’t get a better 
welcome nowhere.” 

“ Thank you,” said Patch. “ I'll come back 
if you like ; but I want to go now and see Mr. 
Monkeston. I must know if he will give me 
work again; and then I shall be content.” 

So she went away. 

“To think on it!” said Mrs. Bratchet, re- 
turning to her ironing. “There’s a vast more 
to say. And I’ve never told her, neither, about 
the young woman. I lay she don’t know noth- 
ing about it; but there’s time enough.” 


CHAPTER LIII. 

Before Patch went to the little house un- 
der the east front, she turned aside into the 
Minster Close, and sat upon the steps of the 
old door-way which had been her resting-place 
little less than three years ago, when, after that 
brief, bitter encounter with Notturino, she had 
wandered out into the cold, and brooded so 
sadly over a future in which there seemed to 
be nothing but despair. 

Now all was changed ; and Patch was 
changed too. Lean, worn out, and weary as 
ever, there was no longer that restless impa- 
tience in her manner, no longer that fiery light 
of unspent anger in her eyes. Rather she 
looked like a woman who has done a hard 
day’s work, and now, tired, comes home to rest. 

Gretchen was safe. But Mrs. Bratchet’s 
chance gossip had brought up a whole world 
of thought into Patch’s mind. It seemed to 
explain the sad quietness with which, for many 
a month after their arrival in Stuttgart, the girl 
had gone about the lowly duties of her home. 
Perhaps the love had not been all on Roger’s 
side. Perhaps, through those days of patient, 
uncomplaining work, Gretchen had been re- 
membering and regretting. Then Patch re- 
called the touch of pride with which she had 
said she would never go back to Cruxborough. 

“ They have forgotten me,” she said ; “ I do 
now belong to myself.” 

What did it all mean ? And the message 
which had been sent to Roger Monkeston, ask- 
ing him to come to the hotel before Gretchen 
went away, and he never came? Had that 
message been given to Notturino, and had it 
been kept back? For Mrs. Bratchet called 
her “ ungrateful.” Poor Gretchen ! 

For a long time Patch sat thinking there ; 
then she arose and went across to the bow- 
windowed house. She found only Jean at 


131 


THE BLUE BIBBON. 


home; Roger was at the works — he seldom 
left them now, except for food and sleep — and 
Gurtha had gone out upon some household er- 
rand. Jean knew the woman again, for she 
had come occasionally to the house with mes- 
sages ; but, like Mrs. Bratcliet, she associated 
her chiefly with the Ballinger affair, and her 
first thought was that she had been sent by 
Mr. Armstrong, who had long been searching 
for her, to make some statement about it. 

Patch made no long preamble ; she knew 
what she had to do, and she did it. She had 
to explain the part she had taken in Gretchen’s 
disappearance ; to acquit the girl of ingratitude 
in leaving her friends, and of faithlessness in 
keeping them all these years without tidings 
of her welfare. 

“I am the woman,” she said, gravely, enter- 
ing at once upon the subject in hand, “who 
used to work in Mr. Arncliffe’s lacquering- 
room. I have come to tell you about Gret- 
chen Muller. I have seen Mrs. Bratcliet. 
She thinks that Gretchen has been ungrateful 
to you, that she left you without any message 
of thanks. I am here to tell you that it is not 
so. May I go on ?” 

“ What should this woman know ?” thought 
Jean, looking at the gaunt, ungainly figure 
which darkened her door-way. But she bade 
her be seated ‘and say what she had to say; 
only there was a reserve of doubt in her man- 
ner which roused Patch’s pride. 

“ You may think that I do not speak the 
truth ; that does not hurt me. I will tell you 
all, and afterward you can find it out for your- 
self that I am right.” 

“It is three years, though, since you went 

I away,” said Jean. “ How, then, can you have 
heard any thing ?” 

“Yes, lady, it is three years since I went 
away, and I went away the same night that 
Gretchen Muller did. Mr. Armstrong could 
tell you that, for I was in the same carriage 
with him. I had been to the hotel to ask for 
Gretchen, and they told me she had gone to 
London with the Signor Notturino ; and then 
I went to the station, but the train was away, 
and I followed it, and Daniel, the guard, let me 
in before it left the shunting-point.” 

Jean knew the woman had really got in 
there ; Mr. Arncliffe had told them about it. 
“Well, go on.” 

“At the London station I saw her standing 
alone. I went up to her, I put my hand on 
her arm ; I said, ‘ Gretchen, come with me,’ 
and she came. For, lady, I feared the signor. 
I knew him long ago — that he was not a good 
man, and I would not that Gretchen should be 
with him.” 

“ You might be right,” said Jean, still with 
some coldness, for it was a strange story. “ I 
can not tell. But why did you not bring her 
here to us again ? We would still have been 
good to her. Where, then, did you go ?” 

“Where should a girl go but to the mother 
who loves her ? I knew that the signor would 


seek her here early ; and I might not be able 
again to save her. Also, she did not wish to 
come.” 

“ I can understand that,” said Jean. “ She 
knew of my mother’s illness, and our need, yet 
sent no message.” 

Patch looked baffled, perplexed. 

“Lady, she did not know. She knows not 
now. I will tell you why she did not wish to 
come, even if it would have been well for her. 
When the signor would have her go away so 
suddenly, she wished to come to you, and they 
said there w r as no time ; and then she wrote to 
you a letter, asking that your brother would go 
to her, but for one moment, that she might give 
her farewell to you. And the signor took the 
note. I think, lady, he kept it, too.” 

It was Jean’s turn now to look perplexed. 

“ Go on. Tell me the rest. Where did you 
go?” 

“I took her to Stuttgart, home to her moth- 
er, and for some months we lived there ; and 
Gretchen was sad, and she spoke no word, but 
only patiently did what there was for her to do. 
And I thought it might be only that her life 
had closed up from her again, for I knew she 
wanted much to be a great singer. Also, it 
might be she remembered those who had been 
kind to her.” 

“ Then why did she not write to those who 
had been kind to her, if she remembered them ?” 
said Jean, still wondering, still doubting if this 
were all the truth. 

“It was I who made it so, lady. I wished 
no one to know whither we had gone. I knew 
the Signor Notturino, that he would seek her 
out ; and it was likely he would ask for tidings 
here. It were even better for Gretchen you 
should think she cared not, than that he should 
gain power over her once more. Also, Gret- 
chen herself did not wish it, for, as I told you, 
her heart was wounded, for she thought Mr. 
Monkeston would not come to her, even for 
one moment, before she went away. Do you 
blame her for that she thought so, and when 
she had written with tears to ask it? How- 
ever, the child is at peace now.” 

“She must know all the truth,” said Jean, 
more tenderly, as she began to realize that per- 
haps after all poor Gretchen had been more 
sinned against than sinning. “I will think 
what can be done. And so she lives again 
quietly at Stuttgart with her mother?” . 

“ No, lady, not there now. For six months 
we were all there together, and she tried hard 
to be content, and to do her duty in the little 
house. But the brightness was going out of 
her life, for such as she are not made only to 
work and to work, with nothing beyond it ; 
and it came to her again that restlessness that 
she should find her own place, and I begged of 
the good Frau Muller that she would no longer 
bid the girl be content with knitting stockings, 
but let her follow her voice that called. And 
I knew that at Leipsic there was a better school 
for music ; and some friends gave her a letter 


132 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


for the Herr Director, and now she is studying 
there ; and, ah ! how she does work ; and they 
all say that one day she will do well. And the 
brightness has come to her again, and she has 
a pleasure in her life ; and sometimes she prom- 
ises herself that she will sing in England, and 
the kind old Kapellmeister of your cathedral 
shall hear her, and be pleased with his little 
pupil. But of you she speaks not ; for the child 
is proud.” 

Jean made no answer to that. She was 
thinking, thinking. 

“If music is her life,” she said at last, “she 
must follow it. In no other way will she be 
happy. It seems as if it might have been bet- 
ter for her to have gone to Naples, and madame 
would have been her friend, and made a home 
for her in London afterward ; and now that is 
all over. Are you sure you did well ? What 
do you know of this Signor Notturino ? I have 
heard no one else speak ill of him. He has his 
name, and people say that he is a great artist ; 
and madame trusts him.” 

“So may it be; but if any woman knows 
him better than I do, I pity her. But it is 
over now. A week ago I read in the papers at 
Leipsic that he is dead. He died far off, some- 
where in Russia, where he had gone to sing. 
So then I could be at rest, and I came back 
here, where I have people who know me. 
Lady — ” and Patch came straight up to Jean, 
and looked quietly down into the quaint brown 
face whose very plainness shut out the soul 
that quickened it from sorrow such as herself 
had known — “lady, that Signor Notturino was 
my husband. Ah ! you look at me, and your 
eyes say, ‘I believe it not.’ Well, then, go to 
that dirty little street in Naples, where the poor 
people dwell, and ask where the old woman 
Bianca lived, who had her rose-garden out 
among the valleys ; and some one there, per- 
haps, will still remember Patcliuoli, the flower- 
girl, who stood with her basket at the door of 
the great hotel, and they will tell you how sweet- 
ly she could sing, and how un nobil Signor smiled 
upon her, and taught her to love him, and mar- 
ried her, and grew tired of her, and threw her 
away, and went out to a pleasanter life by him- 
self in the great world which was so proud of 
him. Patchuoli ought to have courtesied to 
her fate, poor thing, and gone back to her flow- 
er-baskets, since she was not rich enough to 
take Per troubles to the court, as the great la- 
dies do. But no; she wandered away from 
the place where she had for a little while loved 
and been happy, and she went to England, and 
sang in the London streets, until her voice had 
no more music in it ; and some one told her 
that living was easier in the north country, so 
she came singing ballads for pence at public- 
houses by the way to Cruxborough. That was 
— ah ! a long time ago — thirteen or fourteen 
years ago ; and, lady, you know all the rest.” 

“Have you told Mrs. Bratchet all this ?” said 
Jean. 

“ No ; it was for you to hear it first. I know 


her that she is a good-hearted woman, and hon- 
est, but she talks too much. I have told her 
nothing. I have been there now, to pay the 
money which I took three years ago, when I 
went away after Gretchen, but she does not 
even yet know where I have been all the time. 
She had but one thing to say to me, and that 
was about Mr. Ballinger, which seemed to me 
not important. I have seen him, as I came 
from the station, and he wanted me to go away 
from Cruxborough, and offered me a place 
somewhere else ; but I told him it was my will 
to stay here, and if I can take up work again 
where I was before, I w ill do so. That was also 
one reason why I came to you, for Mrs. Brat- 
chet told me that Mr. Monkeston is now master 
of the Woolsthorpe w r orks, and I wished to ask 
him that I might be in the lacquering-roorn 
again.” 

“I will ask him when he comes home to- 
night. I know r he will be glad to have you. 
Come early to-morrow morning, and I w ill tell 
you w'hat he says. For Gretchen we will w r ait 
and consider. You did vrell that you said noth- 
ing of it to Mrs. Bratchet. Be quiet for a lit- 
tle while, until I know what to do. Yon have 
been a true friend to her, Patch.” 

“I have done my duty, lady. I loved her, 
and I would not she should suffer as I have 
suffered. While he lived I staid with her, for 
I knew not but he might come again ; but now 
she is forever free, and my life is my own 
again, and I will finish it here. There is noth- 
ing for me but that with much work I should 
hide all the past.” 


CHAPTER LIY. 

For a long time Jean Monkeston sat there 
alone in the fire-light, trying to find her way 
through the confused labyrinth of thought which 
Patch’s story had called up around her. That 
the story w r as a true one, she did not doubt. 
A few facts w'hich she already knew confirmed 
it ; and Patch, though a reserved, eccentric 
woman, had a thoroughly good character for 
honesty and straightforwardness. The only 
questionable proceeding of which she had ever 
been accused was that sudden flight with poor 
Mrs. Bratchet’s fifteen-and-sixpence ; and even 
that now r was satisfactorily cleared up. Why, 
then, should she not be trusted for all the rest? 

But in what a different light now poor little 
Gretchcn’s conduct showed ! Jean scarcely 
knew whether to be more glad that the cloud 
had at last cleared aw'ay from her, or more sor- 
ry that for all these years the sweetness of two 
lives had been spoiled by misunderstanding, for 
which neither was to blame. But one thing 
was plain, both Gretchen and Roger must know 
the truth now. And how they were to learn 
it, and how the trust, so long withheld, w r as to 
be given back again, and how, on either side, 
I the story of hope and disappointment, and final 


TIIE BLUE RIBBON. 


141 


color flooded all her face, and she came shyly 
forward, and with eyes down-dropped, and the 
perfume of the song still breathing from her 
! lips, she said, laying her hands on his, 

“The Fraulein Jean has made it that I should 
come back to you again.” 

And how good of the Fraulein Jean to re- 
member, just then, that she must go away to 
give Gurtha directions about her master’s tea ! 

- ■ «C>- — 

CHAPTER LVII. 

Then came the Festival again, rousing Crux- 
borough from its three years’ nap ; and flags 
floated from all the windows, and bells pealed 
from all the churches, and streams of gayly- 
dressed people poured through the streets as 
of yore. But no Madame Fortebracchio, in 
crimson raiment, smiled upon her admiring pub- 
lic now, and no Notturino skulked after dark 
i into the old college yard, and no Patch, hol- 
low-eyed, prowled about the assembly-room 
doors ; and, strangest of all, no one had yet 
: been able to find out who was to sing the so- 
p! ' >s of Mr. Grant’s new cantata, which 
performed on the opening night of 
t' 1 val. 

en the chorus singers, the members 
i class, who had been practicing their 
industriously for the last month, 
to Leipsic had had something to do 
hey were sure; but why no name 
r» . : e announced, and no arrangements 
•’ they should like very much to know. 

| 1 r.v . Mr. Grant was satisfied, or he would 
1 iiu . j so good-tempered, and rub his hands 
with such infinite complacency when any thing 
was said about the probable success of the per- 
formance. As for Mrs. Grant, she was in a 
perfect ecstasy, told every body that her hus- 
band’s cantata would give the Cruxborough 
people such a surprise as they had not had for 
years ; in fact, it would be the talk of the pity, 
she was quite sure. All very well, every body 
said — it was quite right for a wife to have con- 
fidence in her own husband’s doings ; but still 
it would be better to wait until the thing was 
really over, especially as nobody knew whom 
they were going to hear. Surely, if the parts 
were distributed, and any body very particular 
was going to sing the soprano solos, there need 
not have been such a mystery about it. 

Out of respect to the kindly little organist, 
all Cruxborough went to hear his cantata. 
The body ecclesiastical mustered in full force; 
bishop, dean, canons, sub-canons, a splendid ar- 
ray of them, in most eligible positions. The 
body civic, too ; mayor, corporation, and great 
city officers, besides regular Festival-goers, am- 
ateurs, and connoisseurs, who could on no ac- 
count allow a novelty to be produced without 
being there to give their opinion about it. 
Never before, on an opening night, had the 
assembly-room been so crowded ; and never be- 


fore was a conductor welcomed with so hearty 
a cheer as that which the members of his choir 
gave to Mr. Grant, when, baton in hand, he took 
his place before them, looking somewhat ex- 
cited perhaps, but bright and resolute and hope- 
ful, as if sure of himself and sure of them, and 
sure of his audience, and, above all, sure of 
success. 

The overture was gone through perfectly — 
not a hitch, not a jar anywhere. Then came 
the recitative and opening solo for tenor voice ; 
then the chorus. After that came a trio for 
male voices, and then the first soprano air. 
Who was to sing it? Mr. Grant himself went 
down to the artists’ room, and presently came 
back, leading a fair-haired young girl, in sim- 
ple dress of white muslin, neither jewel nor 
flower nor ornament about her, only a snood of 
blue ribbon in that shining golden coronal which 
nature had given her, and which she wore 
with such unconscious grace. Before at all ac- 
knowledging the greeting of the audience, she 
turned and bowed low to the chorus, as though 
recognizing in them first her own people, dwell- 
ers with her in the land of song. Then, with 
a grave, quiet smile, she waited to begin. 

One moment of absolute, entire silence, then 
such a noisy burst of welcome as never that 
old room had listened to before or any Crux- 
borough people given. The choir singers soon 
knew that fair young face again, and their en- 
thusiasm was taken up by the people below, 
who, if they did not recognize Gretchen, were 
ready enough to give their homage to the grace- 
ful maiden’s loveliness. She took it all very 
quietly. It did not seem to make any differ- 
ence to her. Only just at first her eyes wan- 
dered restlessly over the room, until they alight- 
ed on the quiet corner where Jean Monkcston 
and her brother sat, and then a happy smile 
broke over her face ; she was content. 

No fear for Mr. Grant’s cantata now. Gret- 
chen sang with her whole heart and soul. She 
seemed to live and move and have her being 
in the music. She was not content with mere- 
ly taking the parts allotted to her, but through 
every chorus her voice rang out ; she sang for 
the love of her work and for her love of the 
good old Kapellmeister, and a splendid success 
she made for'him. Again and again, when it 
was over, they recalled her; again and again 
she came forward, always with him, as though 
she would not take any praise which he should 
not share. Her gladness was more for him 
than for herself. 

Cruxborough outdid itself in enthusiasm. A 
new star had arisen in the firmament of song, 
and the old cathedral city had been privileged 
to behold its first appearance above the horizon. 
A little of the future prim a donna's fame must 
always attach itself to the place where her 
earliest success had been won. Cruxborough 
might take credit to itself now as being the 
patron of genius, the fosterer both of art and 
science. It had scarcely made up its mind to 
smile upon Urania with a public dinner and a 


142 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


piece of plate, when lo ! Euterpe came forward 
to bask in the lustre of its patronage, and add 
new glory to its annals. Really, the place 
might one day become historical. 

“Astonishing, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Balmain, 
when the short interval between the cantata 
and the miscellaneous selection which was to 
follow gave an opportunity for friendly chatter. 
“To think that three years ago she was only 
a lacquering hand at the Woolsthorpe works! 
Quite a low sort of person, I should fancy ; but 
extremely pretty. I remember now perfectly 
w r ell seeing her at the last Festival, and point- 
ing her out to some people who were with me. 
She was in Mr. Grant’s choir then.” 

“You don’t say so!” returned Captain Dev- 
eron, who came across to talk over the perform- 
ance ; “ but I fancy those Woolsthorpe works 
are going to make us all look rather small.” 
And he glanced into the corner where Roger 
Monkeston was standing in the midst of a knot 
of gentlemen, apparently holding a reception, 
for people kept continually coming and going 
around him. “I suppose that young fellow 
will be one of the burning and shining lights 
now. He quite has his position among scien- 
tific people in London, and on the Continent 
can go where he likes and do what he likes.” 

“Really! how very strange! And he has 
not the least air of society about him. I al- 
ways say you can tell people who have been 
accustomed to do manual work. They never 
carry themselves like born gentlemen. You can 
see at once that they are not the real thing.” 

And Mrs. Balmain looked complacently over 
into the next seat, to her son Cyril, who, just 
fresh from college, and never having had occa- 
sion to obey the apostolic injunction of working 
with his own hands, might therefore be con- 
sidered as a specimen, pure and perfect, of the 
“real thing.” 

“I wonder the Monkestons don’t get into 
society here,” she continued ; “ one never meets 
them anywdiere. I should have been very glad 
to have introduced the young man to a few 
friends ; but I dare say he felt he was not cut 
out for that soft of thing, and, you know, it 
makes one feel so aw’kw’ard when a man does 
not know what to do. And then scientific 
people are a great drag in company, they are 
so dreadful slow. So I dropped it.” 

Mrs. Balmain made a sudden pause, and 
stared persistently into empty space, while Mrs. 
Ballinger in moire' antique, and Matilda in any 
number of lilac silk flounces, swept magnifi- 
cently past. The Ballingers had come out a 
little more into society since the action had 
been decided in their favor. One or tw r o of 
their old set had been to call upon them. They 
had made vigorous attempts, by means of un- 
limited dinner-giving, to gather a fresh circle ; 
and having succeeded with a few recent resi- 
dents in the place, to w r hom the affair of the 
Martinet bank shares had not yet been explain- 
ed, were beginning to assume a little of the old 
importance. 


“Disgusting!” said Mrs. Balmain, shaking 
her dress before the hindmost flounce of the 
lilac silk was out of sight ; “ when every one 
know T s as well as can be that he stole the 
money, although it could not be proved against 
him. If any one could say such a thing of 
Augustus, I would never show my face in pub- 
lic again ; and to see them flaunting about in j 
that w f ay. Of course, you don’t know them 1 
now, do you ?” 

“Not in the least,” answered the captain. 

“We dropped them as soon as the facts : 
came out, though w r e used to be very intimate. 
My husband said the dinners he ate there nev- \ 
er agreed with him, and I don’t wonder at it 
now. I can’t imagine how you were able to 
endure it so long, Stanley.” And Mrs. Bal- 
main turned to her son-in-law, who was sitting j 
next her, with dear Edie by his side. “ But 
then, I say, it was only like having your own 
given to you again. You had a better right ; 
to it than any one else. Do you ever see any j 
thing of young Monkeston ?” 

“Only on business, sometimes. I had to go 
to the works the other week with some com- j 
missions from a friend, and I told him Edie ■; 
and I w ould be very glad to see him any time ; ; 

but I fancy he is getting rather too grand for i 
us. You see, when a fellow is patted on the * 
head by lords and dukes, and that sort of peo- ] 
pie, he can do without us.” 

“Yes,” put in Edie, who had developed, now J* 
into a pretty young matron, and really looked 
charming in her wedding-silk, “done up” with ! 
cerise trimmings ; “ but you know, mamma, if i 
we had kept up with them from the first, it j 
would have made all the difference, and Mr. I 
Monkeston such a very presentable young man, | 
too. I am quite sorry, for Gracie’s sake, be- y] 
cause, of course, he will be settling soon. He \\ 
can not alwrnys poke on with his sister in that ^ 
little bit of a house. It is really wmnderful 
the attention people pay him to-night. Just j 
look, the bishop has gone up to speak to him | 
now! And who is that gentleman with the 
light hair standing beside them?” 

Edie turned to ask Captain Deveron, but 
that gentleman had moved away when Mrs. 
Balmain brought her son-in-law into the con- 
versation. Mr. Armstrong w r as not received in 
the very best circles of Cruxborough society. 

“ Gone over to the Benfields ! What a nui- 
sance ! I wish we had kept him with us — it 
looks well to have a good set of people about 
one. Cyril, why did not you manage to have 
gone on talking with him ? But there is Ma- 
jor Stoner coming — he will be able to tell us. 
The young gentleman, Major Stoner, with the 
light hair, standing between the bishop and 
Mr. Monkeston ?” 

The major leveled hi3 eyeglass in the required 
direction. 

“ Oh ! that’s the young Earl of Cruxborough 
— don’t you know' him ? They say he goes to 
the w r orks tw r o or three times a week, when the 
old countess is at her place here — very fond of 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


133 


loss of faith, was to be told, Jean questioned 
herself through all that long, quiet evening, to 
find out. 

At last, as she sat alone, her face began to 
brighten — that ugly little brown face, which 
was for her as a shield from life’s bitterest sor- 
row, as well as its intensest joy. Yet who should 
call it ugly, then ?— for there had begun to shine 
out through it the bright hopefulness of one 
who sees far off, for those she loves best, the 
dawning of the day. Roger, coming in very 
late from the works, almost worn out with the 
hard study and toil which were required from 
him there now, felt a warm glow, as from some 
unseen presence, fall upon him as he entered 
the little room. It was like the old times, 
when Gretchen’s smile made sunlight there. 

“You have been dreaming happy dreams, lit- 
tle old Jean,” he said, drawing her to him, and 
kissing her as he stretched himself at full length 
on the sofa. “I suppose a grand new design 
for wood-can ing has come to you while you 
have been idling here in the fire-light. Wood- 
carving for you, lens-grinding for me. That is 
the whole story, Jean.” 

“ Not quite, Master Roger. We have each 
other to love and care for, and I should say 
that makes rather the best part of the story at 
present. The book, you know, the real thing ; 
the wood- carving and the lens -grinding are 
only the morocco covers, which keep the inside 
safe and sound. Now, isn’t that a grand fig- 
ure?” 

Roger drew her to him — closer still, this sis- 
ter who had lost so much, who had won in the 
losing of it that crowned peace which perhaps 
was better still. 

“Jean, you are very good. I wonder the 
angels do not want to have you. I shall begin 
to look for the wings soon.” 

“Oh no, you need not do any thing of the 
sort. I am not at all ready to go yet. There 
is a great deal I want to do. First, I want to 
see something of the world ; and by rail one 
can travel more comfortably without wings. 
When are you going to Paris to put up this 
great telescope of yours ?” 

“Next month, Jean. Do you want to go, 
too? I thought you had settled to stay at 
home?” 

“So I had; but I have unsettled it again. 
I think I have as good a right as any one to 
see you put your laurels on ; that is, you know, 
unless you are ashamed of me. Will the 
crown fit less comfortably if a little brown- 
faced hunchback helps to put it on ?” 

Roger’s only reply to that was a kiss, pressed 
lovingly upon the thin, worn cheek. 

“All right, then,” said Jean ; “ I have made 
up my mind to go. You know Mr. Grant has 
some arrangements to make with the Director 
of the Gewandhaus at Leipsic, and he and Mrs. 
Grant are to have a Continental tour on the 
strength of them, and they have asked me if I 
could join them. We should all go together 
as far as Paris, to sec your grand ceremonial, 


Mr. Roger, and then we should leave you to do 
the rest of your business alone, while we took 
our pleasure in a different direction. I sup- 
pose you don’t care to attend the Gewandhaus 
Concerts, do you ?” 

“Not I. My singing days are over now.” 

“Are they? I think mine mean to keep on 
all the time. I never felt more like singing in 
my life than I do just now ; indeed, it is noth- 
ing but your solemn presence which keeps me 
from breaking out. It is the prospect of a 
tour on the Continent which has done it, you 
know. Little people like me do not get such 
a treat every day. And to see you taking 
your place among all the grand members of 
the Academie, and then coming home with 
ever such a long train of letters to your name. 
They gave you about half a dozen, only the 
other day, in London. Roger, I do believe 
by- and -by you will be like those -wonderful 
Australian sheep one reads of in travels that 
require a little wagon behind them to carry 
their tails in. I’m sure you won’t be able to 
walk about comfortably much longer if things 
go on in this way.” 

But, though Jean laughed, her little hands 
were trembling all the time, and her eyes only 
looked bright through the unshed tears which 
sparkled in them. 

Roger, leaning back on his sofa, could not 
see them. He thought Jean was in a wonder- 
fully happy mood to-night. Mrs. Grant had 
been in, most likely, talking over this Leipsic 
visit, and that had put her into such high spir- 
its. Jean was always bright, cheerful, and 
content, but she did not often bubble over into 
fun and raillery. 

“Don’t you take liberties with my caudal 
appendages,” he said, with a merry pretense 
of dignity, “ or I shall not give you tickets for 
the coronation. I had three more joints offer- 
ed me for it this morning. Look here.” 

And Roger took out a letter from the Presi- 
dent of the Belgian Academy of Sciences, con- 
ferring upon him the dignity of Corresponding 
Member, and inviting him to attend the next 
meeting at Brussels, for the purpose of being 
formally admitted into the society. 

“ Very grand indeed,” said Jean. “ I think 
the joints appear to grow larger as they in- 
crease in number, which is decidedly contrary 
to all anatomical precedent. You know, they 
ought to become smaller by degrees and beau- 
tifully less as the appendage elongates itself. 
However, let us be thankful for them in any 
proportions. Now, if they would only ask you 
to join the Cruxborough Gentlemen’s Club, 
what a splendid finish that would be !” 

“ I should certainly require a wagon then to 
support my dignity. But, Jean, if you mean 
to go to Paris with me, you must begin to make 
your preparations. I must start in little more 
than a fortnight.” 

“All right; I can be ready in that time. 
Gurtha will look after every thing while I am 
away. I have only a dress or two to order. 


134 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


I think I might venture upon that black velvet 
mantle which has been looming in the distance 
such a long time, and a very quiet little bonnet, 
and — let me see — a brown silk dress. Yes, I 
can fancy myself in a brown silk dress better 
than any thing else. And then something to 
travel in ; and a suitable toilet, too, for these 
Gewandhaus Concerts. Dear me ! how things 
do come up one after another when one begins 
to think about them. Dress, dress, dress! 
What a great deal of money we poor women 
might have kept in our pockets if Eve had nev- 
er eaten that apple !” 

“Only that most probably you would have 
had no pockets to put it in, then,” suggested 
Roger. 

“Of course; I had forgotten that. We 
must have made purses of our mouths, as the 
little boys do at the Ragged School. But, 
Roger, I have something else to tell you. That 
poor woman, Patch, has come back. Patch — 
you remember? — who used to work in the lac- 
quering-room.” 

“Yes, I do remember,” said Roger, going 
back in thought to the old days when Gret- 
chen’s voice used to make such sweet music 
there. ‘ ‘ She went away three years ago. And 
where has she been all the time ?” 

“In different places. She has been earn- 
ing her living honestly though, and now she 
wants to get work again with you. You will 
take her on, will you not?” 

“Yes; she may come to-morrow morning, 
if she likes. I don’t know that she will have 
just the same place again, for we have another 
woman over the girls in the lacquering-room ; 
but I will tell the clerk to find her a berth 
somewhere.” 

“ That is right ; she will be glad, poor wom- 
an, for she seemed very anxious to be doing 
something. And I have still another thing to 
tell you, Roger. She happened to go into the 
Minster as she came from the station ; and she 
was very tired, and she fell asleep with her 
head on her bundle ; and Mr. Ballinger, pass- 
ing through, saw her, and gave her a shake to 
wake her, you know.” 

“ Exactly. You would like somebody to do 
as much for his moral faculties just now, would 
you not, Jean? I know you are a downright 
little Draco about those shares.” 

“ Yes, I should like it very much, and I fan- 
cy he will get it before long. But when he 
had awakened her and found out who she w r as 
— for, you know, he remembered her when she 
used to live at "YVastewood — he w T as very anx- 
ious indeed to get her aw T ay from Cruxborough, 
and offered her a situation at one of his branch 
offices. That looks as if he were afraid of some- 
thing, does it not?” 

“Poor BallingerJ I think he is paying 
rather dear for those unfortunate bank shares. 
He is very welcome to them, though, so far as 
I am concerned. I would not touch a penny 
of the money, even if Mr. Armstrong made him 
pay it over and over again.” 


“ Neither would I ; but I should like him to 
be obliged to disgorge it, all the same. Let it 
go to some of the charities he w r as so fond of 
patronizing; that would be an admirable way 
of appropriating it. Or it might found a Bal- 
linger scholarship in the Blue -coat School. 
That is a capital idea, Roger, is it not ?” 

“Don’t be too hard upon him, Jean. You 
don’t know what he may have had to struggle 
against.” 

“No. But I do know what we have had to 
struggle against, and that is enough. Besides, 
when a man has done wrong, I like to see him 
punished for it.” 

“Then you may have that satisfaction now'. 
I hear of him sometimes from Mr. Armstrong, 
and almost every one has dropped his acquaint- 
ance. None of his old friends even go to the 
house. He has had to form an entirely new 
set, who are not so particular. Is not that 
punishment enough, for a man to feel himself 
despised where once he w T as a sort of little 
king?” 

“ No, Roger ; because it is not a punishment 
that a man like Ballinger would ever feel. He 
values his money more than his character ; he 
would rather let all one go than a penny of the 
other. I do not call it punishment for a man 
to lose what he never properly valued. Let 
him be made to give up the money, and then I 
will be content; not till then.” 

“I am more easily satisfied. All I want 
now is a cup of coffee. Fetch me it, will you, 
Jean? and then I shall be content; not till 
then. And we will leave Mr. Ballinger to his 
own devices.” 


CHAPTER LY. 

Patch went to her work in the lacquering- 
room next morning, and might have staid there 
quietly enough for some time to come, if Mrs. 
Bratchet, on the occasion of her next clean-lin- 
en journey to Wastew'ood, had not told young 
Mrs. Armstrong all about it, with the addition 
of Mr. Ballinger’s great anxiety that the wom- 
an should be got out of Cruxborough as soon 
as possible. And dear Edie, who, besides the 
indulgence of her own little private grudge 
against those very stuck-up people in the Port- 
man Road, had now her husband’s interests to 
consider, told him the wffiole story, and suggest- 
ed to him that, if he ever intended to bring 
matters to a crisis, he had better do so at once. 

In a few days Patch’s return was known all 
over Cruxborough — at least, over all that part 
which had made itself acquainted with the par- 
ticulars of Mr. Ballinger’s disgraceful conduct. 
Mr. Armstrong soon found her out at the Wools- 
thorpe works, and after hearing her story, and 
taking a legal opinion, he brought an action 
against his former friend and entertainer for 
unlawful detention of property. 

Mr. Ballinger was not unprepared for this. 
He knew well enough what w r ould happen if 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


135 


Patch could not be quietly conveyed away be- 
fore any one beard of her re-appearance. And 
when be found that his efforts in that direction 
were baffled by the woman’s quiet persistence, 
be prepared himself for defense in another di- 
rection, with what success will appear by-and- 
by. At any rate, he did not mean to give up 
those shares without a close fight for them. If 
the evidence of a vagabond, half-Avitted Italian 
woman was all Mr. Armstrong had to go upon, 
a verdict might be given in the defendant’s fa- 
vor even yet. Mr. Ballinger buttoned his pock- 
ets, rubbed up his hair, and beamed over his 
spectacles as heretofore, whenever there was 
an object in the shape of well-conducted ob- 
sequious poverty to beam upon. 

Mr. Armstrong had applied to Roger, but he 
declined having any thing to do with the af- 
fair, for or against. Mrs. Monkeston was a 
proud woman. Her son had inherited some- 
what of her pride ; he had been taught to build 
upon his own foundation, to hew his way to 
success, not through other people’s money, hut 
through his own effort. He had not had time 
either, like his sister Jean, to brood over Mr. 
Ballinger’s injustice, until the sense of it was 
almost touched with bitterness. To be cheat- 
ed out of a few pounds was not the sorest 
trouble Roger Monkeston had known. The 
strong, purposeful, resolute energy which had 
helped him to pluck the sting of disappoint- 
ment, and leave that dragon conquered on the 
field, could easily throw the lesser crew of petty 
wrongs under which some men chafe and worry. 

Besides, there was no time now to nurse old 
grudges. His journey to Paris would take 
him away from the Cruxborough Assizes, so 
that he was relieved from the troublesome ne- 
cessity of appearing in Mr. Armstrong’s cause'. 
Every day until then would be crowded with 
duty. The great telescope was already in work- 
ing order. Several observations had been made 
with it. Only a few finishing - touches were to 
be added now to the ornamental part of the 
mounting. For a week before its departure 
the magnificent instrument held a sort of levee 
in the court-yard of the Woolsthorpe works. 
Scientific men from all parts of the country 
came to see it. The Countess Dowager of 
Cruxborough made a special journey from her 
place in Devonshire to pay her respects to it; 
and after that it became “ the thing ” to have 
had an introduction to the Woolsthorpe tele- 
scope. Every one in Cruxborough who had 
the least pretension to any thing like a posi- 
tion, or who wanted something to talk about 
during morning calls and dinner parties, left a 
card at Mr. Monkeston’s office, and requested 
the favor of admission to the court-yard. Mrs. 
Balmain and her daughter Grade were among 
the number, and that good lady made one more 
vigorous effort, on the strength of her hus- 
band’s lately developed astronomical tastes, to 
draw Roger into the circle of her acquaintance. 
They should be so delighted if he would . come 
in occasionally. Surely, the relaxation of a 


little agreeable society would refresh him, after 
such close application to work. Mr. Balmain 
was nearly always at home in an evening, and 
would so enjoy a quiet conversation ; or, if he 
would prefer meeting a few friends — 

But Roger happened to have a foolish preju- 
dice against being picked up again by people 
who had once dropped him, and Mrs. Bal- 
main’s well-meant efforts were for the last time 
unsuccessful. 

Just a fortnight after that dialogue in the 
bow-windowed room, Mr. and Mrs. Grant, Rog- 
er Monkeston and his sister Jean were on their 
way to Faris, where they were to remain until 
after the putting up of the telescope, and the 
admission of its completer as a member of the 
Institute of France. From thence he was to 
go to Brussels, to attend the meetings of the 
Academy there, while Mr. and Mrs. Grant went 
on their German tour, with Jean for companion 
— Jean, so full now of bright,' happy purpose; 
for was not that journey to bring the sunshine 
back into two lives ? 

Roger wrote a very modest account of the 
Paris doings to his old friend and helper, Dr. 
Boniface, keeping himself as much out of sight 
as possible, and only dwelling with quiet satis- 
faction upon the success of Mr. Arncliffe’s great 
work. But Mrs. Grant, a warm-hearted, im- 
pulsive little woman, felt no need of such re- 
pression, and accordingly sent her own version 
of the affair, together with a packet of Paris 
papers, to her friends at Cruxborough. 

Next week the usually respectable dullness 
of the Chronicle was enlivened by a flowery de- 
scription of the triumph achieved by “our tal- 
ented young fellow-citizen.” By-and-by the 
London scientific journals- came dropping in 
with fuller statements. Special correspond- 
ents gave their reports.. At the next meeting 
of the Royal Society a paper was read on the 
successful working of this, as yet, the grandest 
effort of optical and mathematical science, and 
much credit was given to the young man upon 
whom, in consequence of the untimely death of 
the great astronomer himself, the conduct and 
completion of' the undertaking had devolved. 
Cruxborough began to look with a dim sort of 
reverence - upom that little house at the top of 
Bishop’s Lanej. where so much genius had lain 
dormant, and to discuss the advisability of a 
public dinner, as a sort of acknowledgment of 
merit. A public dinner, and perhaps a piece 
of plate ; for really one must not be behind the 
times. 

Mr. and Mrs. Grant and Jean arrived at 
Leipsic. The brisk little organist set out at 
once upon a tour of discovery. Guide-book 
and umbrella in hand, and with his equally 
brisk little wife clinging to his arm, he sallied 
forth to inspect the lions of the fine old town, 
and see the Director of the Gewandhaus Con- 
certs. 

Jean’s tour of discovery lay in another direc- 
tion. She hired a carriage and went out for a 
couple of miles into the country, toward a little 


13G 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


village to which Patch had directed her. Tell- ( 
ing the man to wait for her, she took. her jour- 
ney on foot to an old-fashioned timbered cot- 
tage, with a vegetable-garden in front, an ap- 
ple orchard on one side, knee-deep now in tall 
grass, and on the other a wooden summer- 
house, whence issued the hum of a spinning- 
wheel. A peasant woman was passing by. 

“Frau Muller?” asked Jean, using for her 
question almost the only two German words 
she knew, and pointing to the cottage with a 
look of inquiry. 

“Ja”- 

The woman nodded and went her way. 

Jean was going toward the summer-house, 
when she saw, far off, at the other end of the 
orchard, the flutter of a white apron, and a 
sheen of golden curls which could only belong 
to Gretchen. The girl was coming to the house 
with a wooden pail full of apples, singing as she 
came, in a clear, bright voice, some bars of a 
song exercise. Catching sight of a stranger in 
the garden, she stopped. Then, as she recog- 
nized the crooked figure and pale face of Jean 
Monkeston, she started, let fall her pail of ap- 
ples, and stood perfectly motionless, with eyes 
down-dropped, and lips pressed tightly together. 

Jean went up to her. Still she made no move- 
ment of welcome — only said, very gravely, 

“It is, then, the Fiaulein Monkeston?” 

“Yes,” said Jean, taking her hand, and 
looking her full in the face with those great 
honest brown eyes. “ You will smile upon me 
when I have told you all. Gretchen, it is not 
as you think. Wc have not forgotten you.” 

“I did' ask that you should come to me but 
for one moment, and you came not,” said the 
girl, letting her large hands lie coldly in Jean’s 
clasp ; and there was only a far-away, regret- 
ful look in her eyes, touched with a faint flush 
of pride. 

“You asked, Gretchen, but we never knew 
that you asked. I have seen Patch ; she has 
come home and told me all. The cruel signor 
never brought to us your little note. He told 
you a falsehood when he said he was your 
friend. Roger wanted very much to see you, 
and he went to the hotel and asked for you, but 
the Signor Notturino would only take a mes- 
sage. And he said to my brother, when he 
came back, that you could not see him. That 
is the last we ever heard of you, Gretchen, un- 
til a fortnight ago, when Patch told me all the 
rest. And you thought we had forgotten, and 
I come now to tell you we remember.” 

A light came over Gretchen’s pure young 
face, like the rose glow of sunshine upon some 
snow-covered mountain’s brow\ Gradually a 
soul of tenderness awoke in her blue eyes, the 
lines of the quietly-folded lips broke and quiv- 
ered into the old sweet smile. She knelt there 
upon the long grass, and laid her cheek upon 
Jean’s hand, and for a while she was very still. 
When she arose it was the Gretchen of three 
years ago, only that the simple girlish face was 
touched now with the tenderness and calm of 


the woman who has looked sadness in the face, 
and walked hand in hand with disappointment. 

“ Come to the Dannerbaum and sit down, 
and let me that I tell you all,” she said, lead- 
ing Jean to a seat at the other end of the or- 
chard. “But say to me first again that you 
remember me. And madame with the good 
grave face. Madame who was so kind to me, 
is she then well ?” 

Jean laid her little brown hand on Gretchen’s 
knee ; on one finger there was a mourning-ring, 
with a band of gray-brown hair set within the 
pale gold. Gretchen kissed it. 

“I know, then. And the days for you have 
been dark days. And I was not there to say 
to you that I loved you. That you have no 
longer a mother, how sad it is ! And she, too, 
did think that I forget. But she knows now, 
and she forgives.” 

“It is all right,” said Jean, quietly. “ But 
now tell me of your own life. Tell me why 
you went away so quickly, and what you have 
done.” 

“Ac//, Gott!" and Gretchen shuddered. 
“That was a fearful day when I knew I must 
go ; for there was no time that I should give 
you my farewell. And madame said to me 
that I should write for you a note, and ask that 
the Herr Monkeston would only for one mo- 
ment come to me ; and the signor took it, and 
I waited patiently; but he came not, and it 
was time that I should go, and the signor said 
perhaps it was not the way that in England we 
do ask people to come to us; and that I was 
bold, which made me that I turned away from 
you in my thoughts, although I could not for- 
get. And there was no longer any thing for 
me to regret, since you did not care, and I 
went away with him ; but I had no hope. It 
was not to me good that I went, only that my 
will had gone. But the good Patch, like a 
spirit, came to me when we had reached to 
London, and she bade me that I should follow 
her, and I staid not to ask any thing ; and af- 
ter a while she brought me to my home at 
Stuttgart, and there wc all lived together, and 
I u f as at peace once more, and every door was 
shut, and no voice called, and none remember- 
ed me, and I spun and I knitted, and I did 
much work, and mv mother said to me, ‘ Gret- 
chen, thou art a good child.’ ” 

“And you were happy again?” said Jean, 
with a look that was not all of content, “ quite 
happy ?” 

Gretchen looked away, out to the blue sky, 
past the laden apple branches, where the ripen- 
ing fruit swnyed to and fro. 

“ Is it. then, that we are happy when we spin 
and knit ? Why do wc at all have any souls, 
if that is every thing ; and w'hy does not the 
good house-mother wind us up with a spring 
that we do so much, and then go to sleep ? I 
thought you remembered me no more, and you 
say, was I happy ? Can we, then, be so happy 
when those we loved want us no more? Ah 
me ! And I could not even write to you ! I 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


137 


think it was my pride that I should speak to 
you of myself no more. I would, though, have 
written to the good Kapellmeister, but Patch 
said I must keep quietly there, and that no one 
should know. And I did wait very patiently, 
and then it came to me again that I must sing. 
Once more that was for me my life. And 
Patch was very good. She spoke for me to 
my mother that we should come here, and my 
master gave me a letter for the Herr Director, 
and once more I began to work, and now it is 
better. And you put from me a great weight 
when you say that you do remember. It is 
not, then, that you think me bold ? Ah ! but 
was it not as bad that you think I forget ? And 
your brother, who was so good to me !” 

Gretchen’s face was turned away still to the 
blue sky and the drifting white cloud and the 
laden apple boughs ; but Jean, with love’s fine 
wit, discerned the subtle change which passed 
over the girl’s voice, even as one feels through 
shut eyelids the coming and going of the light. 

“Roger and I live at home by ourselves in 
the old house. He is the master of the Wools- 
thorpe works now. Mr. Arncliffe is dead, and 
has left them to him.” 

Gretchen’s head drooped slightly. 

“Ah ! then he is now one of the great peo- 
ples. I do remember so well he said once he 
was of the little peoples, and I was of the little 
peoples, too ; and that there was no what you 
call gulf between us ! Ah ! that is now no 
longer so. But I do work. I work with very 
much a spirit, and perhaps one day I shall go 
where* the great singers are, and be one of 
them. The Herr Director is very good to me ; 
he says he will one day be proud of me, and 
then I will bring myself to the Kapellmeister, 
Herr Grant, and I will say, Behold me that I 
have not forgotten you. All the way to En- 
gland will I come that he may see me!” 

“ You need not come so far as that,” said 
Jean, smiling at the gill’s enthusiasm; “Mr. 
Grant is here in Leipsic. He has come to hear 
some new voices at the Conservatoire, but he 
did not think yours would be among them. 
And next month it will- again be the Eestival at 
Oruxborough, and I have a little castle in the 
air that ygru shall come home with me, and per- 
haps Mr. Grant will let you sing there.” 

“ Then will I be content and a great smile 
broke over Gretchen’s face. “I said to my- 
self that I would once do it. I, the little peas- 
ant girl of Stuttgart, shall sing in the great 
Domkirche, and it will seem to me that lam 
in heaven. Tell me, -where is the Kapellmeis- 
ter?” 

“ We will go to him soon ; but take me first 
to your mother. I must see her, and ask if 
she will like for you to go to England with 
me.” 

So they went indoors, to the honest old 
Frau, who left her spinning and courtcsied 
lowlily when Gretchen had made her under- 
stand who Jean was. And then she brought 
out bread and honey and garden fruit, and they 


had a lunch, and Gretchen acted as interpret- 
er, and told the good mother all about it, after 
which the girl put on her festa dress and went 
back with Jean to the town. 


CHAPTER LYI. 

Half an hour later there was a great scuffle 
on the hotel staircase outside the room where 
Jean and Gretchen were talking. It was Mr. 
Grant tumbling up stairs, three or four steps at 
a time, as he always did when he w r as particu- 
larly pleased about any thing. Jean had just 
time to push Gretchen behind the window-cur- 
tains, and caution her to keep very still there, 
when the active little man almost capered into 
the room, his face beaming over with delighted 
surprise. 

“Ah ! Miss Monkeston, what do you think ? 
Here is a piece of news for you. I have found 
our little singing-bird again. Such a romance ! 
That old duenna, Patch, got hold of her some- 
how, and carried her off to Stuttgart ; and from 
there they all came to Leipsic, because she 
could not rest without w r orking at her music. 
And she has been practicing for nearly three 
years ; and the Director says she is one of his 
best pupils. I did not hear her, for this is not 
one of her singing days ; but I am to go again 
to-morrow. He wants her to go to London 
for the winter season, and he will give her in- 
troductions, and she will soon be one of the 
best concert-singers we have. I mean to carry 
her off for the Festival ; she shall sing the so- 
prano solos in my cantata. What do you say 
to that ?” 

“ Why, that I knew about it a fortnight ago, 
but I w r ould not tell you, for I wanted to make 
you a surprise. I told Patch not to say any 
thing. You know, she came back to Cruxbor- 
ough, and brought us the whole history. And 
that was why I came to Leipsic, good Herr 
Kapellmeister, that I might know it all for 
myself.” 

“You little Trappist, never to tell me! I 
won’t stop to talk to you, though, for I’m off 
directly to the place where she lives. I can’t 
wait until to-morrow to hear her sing.” 

“ I dare say you may hear her now, if you 
like,” said Jean, drawing back the curtain, 
from which Gretchen came blushing forward. 
“I have been to see the Frau Muller this 
morning, and your little singing -bird came 
back with me. I wanted to know first if she 
remembered us. But you will tell Mr. Grant 
that yourself, will you not, Gretchen ?” 

“Should it be that I could forget,” said the 
girl, simply, “when you took for me so much 
trouble that I should learn? The Fraulein 
Monkeston will presently tell you all, and you 
will no longer say I am ungrateful. Would 
you like that I should sing to you now ? The 
Herr Director says I do make much progress.” 

Without another word Gretchen went to the 


138 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


piano. All she had to do now was to show 
Mr. Grant she had not been idle in these years 
since he lost sight of her. Very quietly, with- 
out any concert -room airs and graces, she sat 
down, and began to sing “ Kennst du das Land?” 
the song which, three years ago, had made the 
tears down-drop from Madame Fortebracchio’s 
bright eyes, when with such sweet, unconscious 
sadness Gretchen told forth in it the story of 
her own unsatisfied longing. But there was 
no longing now, no yearning after that which 
seemed forever out of reach. Rather the calm, 
full-voiced music told of a spirit that had found 
its home in the beautiful art-world, and spoke 
its own language there, and lived its own life 
in perfect content. 

Jqan’s honest brown eyes beamed with won- 
der and delight. Was this, indeed, the little 
peasant girl who used to sing over her work in 
the lacquering-room, and come home night af- 
ter night to the soap-suds and starch-bowls of 
the good washer- woman’s kitchen ? For Gret- 
chen’s very face and form became transfigured 
as she spoke to herself in the music. There gath- 
ered round her a strange sort of queenliness. 
One forgot the Bauerinn , with her humble garb 
and large work-coarsened hands, and remem- 
bered only the artist whose proud heritage it 
was to be at home in the realm of song, and 
wandering free in that sunny Citronen-land, to 
fiing to colder climes the blossoms which she 
gathered there. 

Impulsive little Mrs. Grant hid her face in 
her pocket-handkerchief, and began to cry. 
The good Kapellmeister trembled with exul- 
tation. He listened through his intellect as 
well as through his feelings. He understood, 
better than either of the others, the mastery 
which Gretchen had gained over her art, to be 
able now to make it so perfect an interpreter 
of herself. He realized the hard toil and en- 
deavor which had been put forth to win so fair 
a result. His little pupil had made her place 
at last, and deserved all that might be given to 
her now. 

“My child!” he said, kissing her forehead, 
“you have made me young again. This hour 
is worth all my journey to Leipsic. I must 
have you to sing in my cantata. Ah ! I see 
it,” and he turned to Jean and Mrs. Grant. 
“Gretchen shall come back with us to Crux- 
borough. It shall be a great secret ; we will 
say nothing about it to any one, and at the 
Festival she shall sing my soprano solos for 
me. What say you, little one, shall it be so ? 
Will you come ?” 

“I will,” said Gretchen, quietly, but with a 
great light in her eyes. “ I promised to my- 
self long ago that one day I would sing alone 
in the Domkirche, and now you have made it 
for me that I do so.” 

“ Yes ; only that my cantata is not to be in 
the Domkirche, as you call it, but in the as- 
sembly-room, on the opening night of the Fes- 
tival. However, you shall have your wish, too. 
You shall sing in the Minster on the first ora- 


torio morning, and I will bring you in myself. 
We shall make it all right. The Director has 
been telling me that he wishes you to come to 
London for the next winter season, and he will 
give you introductions, and secure you plenty 
of engagements. So it will just be that you 
come a month earlier, and I will take care of 
you, and you shall stay with me until the Fes- 
tival is over.” 

“No, no,” said Jean, “you go on too fast. 
Gretchen and I have settled all that. She is 
to go back to Cruxborough with me, and be 
my guest ; but I will keep your secret just the 
same, and I will promise you that until the very 
last no one shall know who is to sing your so- 
prano solos. Ah ! I can see it ! How good it 
will be ! Gretchen, are you not glad ?” 

“I am content,” said Gretchen. 

So it was all settled. The good Frau Muller 
•was glad to commit her daughter to such safe- 
keeping. The Director gave the necessary cer- 
tificates, introductions, and recommendations. 
Mr. and Mrs. Grant and Jean went on their 
journey, with the understanding that in three 
weeks they were to return to Leipsic, and then 
take Gretchen home with them. Roger was 
still in Brussels. From thence he was to go 
to Berlin and Weimar to attend scientific meet- 
ings, and perhaps stay some time in London 
on his way back, so that he would not be in 
Cruxborough again until after Jean and Gret- 
chen were safely settled there. No fear of 
Jean revealing Mr. Grant’s happy little secret. . 
Her own bright purpose — happier still — lay 
hidden beneath it. Ah ! this home-coming of 
Roger’s, how pleasant it should be ! 

She arranged the journey so that they reach- 
ed Cruxborough only the night before his re- 
turn. Next morning there was a letter to tell 
the hour at which he would come. Jean made 
every thing bright and comfortable in the little 
old parlor, which was now his study. Through 
it a door opened into what used to be the shop, 
but now was the general sitting-room, with its 
screen of ferns and creeping plants in the deep 
bow-window, its soft crimson draperies, its dain- 
ty ornaments of carved- wood, its w'ell-worn pi- 
ano, somewhat the worse for use now, but still 
able to discourse eloquent music when touched 
by a skillful hand. Here Jean brought Gret- 
chen, having arrayed her first, not in the iden- 
tical festa dress of three years ago, for that had 
been w orn out at the Leipsic practicings, but in 
one exactly like it, which she had insisted upon 
buying for her before they came away. 

“You know I want every thing to be just 
like the old times,” she said, as she helped 
Gretchen to dress, and arranged her rippling 
golden hair, and wove the blue ribbon through 
it — the blue ribbon which had been folded away 
so carefully, and looked at so often through a 
mist of dim, regretful tears. For now that lit- 
tle three months was Gretchen’s sweetest mem- 
ory, too. “ You must be just the same. Don’t 
alter one single thing. Roger will be so pleased. 
He does not know you are here at all. I have 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


139 


kept it all as a surprise for him. Shall you be 
pleased, too, little one ?” 

“ Ah ! but,” said Gretchen, with a sigh, 
“ perhaps he will not care to remember, now 
he does belong to the great peoples ; and for 
me, my mother does knit and spin, and we are 
very poor.” 

And there came a wistful look upon her face. 
Truly that land was fair toward which, in her 
new art -life, she was journeying; but fairer 
still w r as the sunny little island, set so far off in 
memory’s distance. It was that now, not the 
old days in the Stuttgart Conservatoire, whose 
remembrance made Gretchen sad. Perhaps 
the Herr Monkeston, standing in his place 
among the great people, would care no longer 
to reach out his hand to hers, as in the old 
days. And if not, would the new land any long- 
er be so fair then ? When Gretchen thought 
of singing in the Domkirclie, there had always 
been the companion thought of the Herr Monk- 
eston listening, perhaps speaking to her through 
the music, if he ever sang there now as in the 
old time ; and no praise which the good Ka- 
pellmeister might give her, no honor or ap- 
plause which she might win there, would be 
half so sweet as a single word from the young 
mechanic who had once, so long ago, held her 
hand in his, and said, “ Stay, Gretchen — stay.” 
And then she had doubted, and then she had 
not cared, and then other voices were calling, 
and another light seemed luring her on. Would 
he care arty more to say, “ Stay, Gretchen — 
stay !” 

There was a sound of carriage-wheels. Rog- 
er had come home. 

“ Wait here, Gretchen, until I come to you 
again. Do not go away.” 

And then Jean ran out to meet him. He 
looked very tired. There were the lines of ex- 
citement and anxiety on his face. These last 
few months had made Roger Monkeston look 
almost like a middle-aged man, and he was be- 
ginning to have that slight stoop which study 
gives, so different from the upright bearing of 
his younger days. 

“Ah! Jean, but I am glad to be home 
again !” he said, as she took from him his wraps 
and bags, and brought him into his own little 
parlor, where a bright fire was burning, and a 
kettle singing on the hob, and his dressing-gown 
and slippers ready for him by the easy-chair. 
“There is no place like home.” 

“Not even for a member of the French In- 
stitute,” said Jean, gayly, “and an Associate 
of the Belgian Academy of Sciences. I don’t 
wonder you are tired, when you have such a 
load of honors to carry about with you. You 
know, if people will let the world hear about 
them, they must take the consequences. Sit 
down here, and get quite rested, and then you 
must begin to tell me something.” 

“I think it is you who ought to tell me,” 
said Roger, settling himself down in the great 
chair — their mother’s chair — while Jean drew 
a stool to his side and laid her head down on 


his knee. “You have kept me shamefully in 
the dark for the last three weeks about your 
goings-on. Never any thing about what you 
did at Leipsic, or what you heard, or what you 
saw ; and then stealing a march upon me, and 
getting home first in this way, instead of letting 
me take care of you from London. What a 
wonderfully independent little lady we have be- 
come all at once ! Why did you not wait for 
me, and w r e could both have come together?” 

“ Because I wanted to get the house ready 
for you — triumphal arches, and all that sort of 
thing, you know'. And then I thought perhaps 
you w'ould not care to have a little humpty- 
dumpty like me trotting about after you among 
your great London friends, and so I came home 
quietly, and every thing is all right now. Do 
you feel very different, now that people have 
begun to take so much notice of you/? Does 
it make you just a little bit light-headed — as if, 
you know’, quite another sort of life altogether 
were getting ready for you — as if something 
very good were beginning to peep up behind 
this quiet old Cruxborough life of ours ?” 

“ Jean, you little sprite, you are in one of your 
mischievous moods to-night. You ought to 
have w r aited for me in London, so that we might 
have come home together, and then you w’ould 
have been too tired to tease me, and your eyes 
w’ould not have been so full- of fun. You look 
as if you were up to all sorts of tricks.” 

“ And so I am. I could begin now’, only 
you must rest and have some tea first, and I 
want to sit by you and hear about things. First 
of all, though, I have heard something to-day. 
Mr. Armstrong has lost his action ; a verdict 
has been given for the defendant. They would 
not take Patch’s evidence, because it was proved 
that she was of unsound mind ; so Ballinger 
keeps the shares. It is a shame ! What is 
the use of having laws, if they can’t take hold 
of thieves like him ? And I dare say, in his ca- 
pacity of magistrate, he has often enough com- 
mitted poor people to prison for stealing loaves 
and turnips.” 

“ Never mind, Jean ; let the poor man alone. 
By-and-by he will find his punishment as heavy 
as he can bear. I can’t feel the least bit of in- 
terest about it in any way.” 

“I don’t believe you can. I wonder if I 
could tell you any thing else just now that w’oulcl 
wake you up a little ?” 

“ I don’t believe you could. I feel as if I 
had come to the end of every thing.” 

“Poor fellow!” And Jean laid her little 
brown hand caressingly upon his hot forehead. 
But her eyes were sparkling all the time, and 
her voice had a rich ring of gladness in it, which 
Roger, worn out and w r eary, could not under- 
stand. It made him almost vexed. 

“Jean,” he said, turning his forehead away 
from under her hand, “ do let me go to sleep, 
and don’t come to me for ever so long. I don’t 
want tea, or talk, or any thing, but only to be let 
alone. I wish I could go to sleep for a whole 
month.” 


140 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


And his eyes met hers in a long look, full of 
hitter meaning. Jean understood. It was this 
Festival-time that brought back the old mem- 
ories. Three years ago life had been so differ- 
ent. He had had so much more to work for, 
to hope for. It was seldom that Roger touch- 
ed, even in this slight way, upon the past. 
Generally it lay buried out of sight ; but to-night 
he had reached that stage of mental and bodily 
tiredness when a man’s power of self-help gives 
way, and he wants the touch of a human hand, 
the sound of a human voice, to tell him that he 
does not stand quite alone in his working or 
his enduring. 

Jean said nothing, only kissed him — a long, 
quiet, sisterly kiss — and laid her cheek upon 
his, and then went away, leaving him there 
alone in the fire-light. 

It was true. He had come to the end of ev- 
ery thing. He was feeling the reaction which 
follows all great achievements, that terrible 
panting exhaustion which comes when a great 
height has been gained. What was it all 
worth? He had given himself a great thing 
to do; he had fulfilled the trust committed to 
him, and proved himself able to stand in the 
place which his old master had left. All the 
way was open to him now. He had not been 
bidden to tarry, like Matthew Arncliffe, for 
years and years, knocking at the gate of suc- 
cess, waiting for public recognition. His re- 
ward had been paid down to him at once. 
Comparatively a young man, with most of his 
life before him, he was already in possession of 
what a greater than himself, the grand old 
peasant astronomer, had toiled patiently for 
until almost the day of his death. No lack of 
honor now. He might take that richly certif- 
icated name of his into any society, at home or 
abroad, and be sure of a welcome. He might 
stand up among the most gifted of English and 
foreign scientific men, and what he said would 
be listened to with respect. He carried his 
credentials in the work which he had done. 
And what was it all worth ? 

Roger looked back through long years to the 
days of his boyhood, when he used to make 
telescopes of his mother’s cotton-reels, and con- 
struct three-wheeled orreries with pasteboard 
and sealing-wax. He traced all the steps by 
which he had slowly traveled up, at Mr. Arn- 
cliffe’s side, until, Moses-like, not having en- 
tered the promised land, but only beholding it 
afar off, the old man had died, and left him to 
finish his journey alone. That promised land 
was reached no w, but, alas ! he entered it wfith 
Jean only by his side, to gaze with him upon 
its richness and its beauty. And were even 
these so very much? Gold medals from the 
great societies of Paris, Berlin, and Brussels. 
Ah ! but it was not a golden medal he had set 
before him when, three years ago, he started 
afresh in the race of life. A more shining 
guerdon than that had lured him on. Now the 
goal w r as reached, the guerdon gone. He stood 
on the mountain top, and the land might be 


very fair, but he was to possess it alone. There 
w r as none to whom ho could say any more, 
“Behold, how good it is !” 

Roger thrust the medals back into his pock- 
et, turned his face away from the glaring fire- 
light, and slept. He dreamed that he was a 
mechanic again, with canvas blouse and black- 
ened hands, standing before his bench in the 
finishing-room ; while Gretchen, on the other 
side of the partition, sang one of her little Ger- 
man love-ballads. Then the great bell rang, 
and the workmen came streaming down the 
corridors ; and he too, hurried away, and by the 
door of the lacquering - room Gretchen’s rosy 
face laughed out upon him, and her hand touch- 
ed his in passing, and she looked into his eyes 
and said, 

“Auf Wiedersehen .” 

Yet still it seemed that a voice, her voice, 
kept singing on, though she had gone, and the 
great corridor was empty, and the iron gates 
were shut. And then he opened his eyes — it 
was a dream ; no corridor, no finishing-room, 
no great lathe-bands moving to and fro, no buzz 
of labor, no pant of the toiling engine sending 
forth its pulse of life through all the mighty 
machine ; only the little sitting-ror *n a r: ’ 
with its old familiar pictures, and th 
flashing upon Jean’s wood-work; i 1 
one corner, on a bracket which she id mdc 
for it, his first cotton-reel telescope, that 
derful achievement of his childhood, 
made the dream, that would break it gu'. u \ \x 
it -would not quite go. Still the s * • 

kept singing on, as he had listened t i urs 
and years ago, a rough -handed me at 

his lathe; the same tender old ballac with its 
sweet ending of perfect peace, 

“Dass uns die Liebe vereint." 

He was aivake — surely he ivas awake, and yet 
the dream -would not break! He waited for 
the music to die softly out. Instead, it began 
again, 

“ Du ! du liegst mir am Herzen !” 

And the voice, so like hers — nay, sweeter, if 
that could be. It filled all the haunted cham- 
bers of memory. It told over again the dear 
story of three years ago. It painted afresh 
the picture which much toil and many cares 
had dimmed. It overflowed as with a clear 
crystalline tide the dry rock shores of the past, 
and every leaf and tress and plume unfolded, 
and every pebble of jasper and agate which had 
been lying unwatched there, sparkled into 
beauty again, and showed like a living jewel in 
the flood. And still the voice kept singing on ; 
and scarce knowing if he dreamed or w'aked, 
Roger rose and went to the open door of the 
room into which Jean had gone. What more, 
then, could it be than a dream that Gretchen 
— the blue-eyed, peasant girl Gretchen, in. her 
festa dress, with the Ilimmelblau ribbon gleam- 
ing among her sunny hair, sat there at the 
piano? And as, turning, she saw him, a rosy 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


H3 


stronomy and mathematics, and all that sort 
f thing, you know. He had young Monkeston 
1 ut to The Towers this last summer, I believe, 
) help him in some* of his concerns. They 
i ave been putting up a dial in the Italian gar- 
J en, and the earl has an observatory, and I 
j on’t know what.” 

And then the major, with a- polite bow, moved 
| way to some of his fellow-officers on the other 
ide of the room. Mrs. Balmain was all very 
r cll, but he did not wish to appear too intimate 
vith the Armstrongs. 

“ Did you ever hear any thing like it ?” said 
Idie to her mamma. “ But of course it is only 
heir w'ay of showing kindness. I believe the 
ristocracy are exceedingly courteous some- 
imes to that sort of people ; but they mean 
othing by it. How old Matilda Ballinger be- 
ins to look, in spite of her expensive dressing ! 
.'hat silk of hers must have been ten guineas 
t the very least.” 

“Don’t mention it,” said Mrs. Balmain, lo'ft- 
v. “I haven’t patience with such extrava- 
ance. It would serve them right if the bank 
roke and brought them to nothing. Nobody 
peaks to them to-night, though. I am very 
. lad of that. Not one of their old set has gone 
ear them. Rather r, difference from the last 
esl when poor Matilda talked so 

Vu*} , /"/ f her prospects, and carried her- 
g was good enough for her. 

• dy out then, Edie, dear — you 
it ; but I have no doubt Mrs. 

, ed things would turn out very 
iffcrontlv Stanley, the people seem to be 
' . , little just now from Mr. Monk- 
ston. i do ...oh you would go over and speak 
) him, and if you can bring him across here for 
minute or two, do. It’s just as well to appear 
itimate, and particularly after the bishop and 
iOrd Cruxborough have been seen speaking to 
im. He could scarcely refuse, if you asked 
im, and I must say I should like it. If Au- 
ustus was here, he would go directly, but I 
ont think Cyril has ever even spoken to him.” 

“ It is no use now,” said Mr. Armstrong ; 

1 he is moving away toward the door. I sup- 
ose he is going to offer his congratulations to 
Ir. Grant and the young ladv. I have no 
oubt he remembers her quite well, if she used 
) work in the lacquering-room when he was a 
reasy mechanic at his lathe. Strange, isn’t it, 
lat both should have come to the top of the 
heel together in this way ? There’s no telling 
hat may come of it. And such a lovely face, 
>o, as the girl has.” 

“Pretty, certainly, but nothing more than 
lat; and quite what I should call a low air 
jout her — no style in her manner of carrying 
ersclf. So very different from that delight- 
il Madame Eortebracchio ! I could have sat 
}fore her for an hour, and wished no other 
eat than simply looking at her, she was al- 
ays so exquisitely got up. I have never for- 
)tten the point-lace she wore at the last Fes- 
val. I told Augustus to secure me front seats 


on purpose to-night^you like to have a good 
view of the dresses ; but dear me ! one might 
have saved one’s self the trouble. A sixpenny 
white muslin, such as I wouldn’t have let you 
wear, Edie, for even a nursery party. It’s per- 
fectly ridiculous !” 

And Mrs. Balmain smoothed out her deli- 
cate dove-colored satin, and adjusted her scar- 
let opera-cloak. The orchestra was beginning 
to fill again now, and the people were settling 
down in their places. What a queer thing it 
would be if young Monkeston really did throw 
himself away upon that German peasant girl, 
and bring her home to the little bow-windowed 
house; quite a romance, and, for her own part, 
she did not think she should object to call upon 
them. Any one with a voice was so very use- 
ful, sometimes, at an evening party ; and most 
likely, if, as people whispered, she was engaged 
for the concert season in London — Mrs. Grant 
had said so, she understood, to Captain Deve- 
ron — why, her manners might acquire a little 
more style, and, by the time the wedding came 
off, she might be quite presentable in society. 
A curious thing, though, a very curious thing ! 

“ But still, Stanley, when he comes in again, 
perhaps before the concert is over, I should like 
you to try if you can not get him across to us 
for a minute or two.” 

And Stanley promised he would try. 

^ 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

But Roger Monkeston and his sister did not 
come back any more. They went into the art- 
ists’ room, where Mr. Grant and little Gretchen 
were surrounded by the creme de la creme of 
Cruxborough and its neighborhood. The ro- 
mantic story of the beautiful young soprano 
had soon been buzzed about all over the room. 
Mrs. Grant had whispered it to Captain Deveron 
after the first solo, and Captain Deveron had 
whispered it to the bishop and his party, and 
from them it had spread in all directions, un- 
til, by the time the cantata was finished, every 
one knew that the singer who had assured its 
success was the little lacquering girl of the 
Woolsthorpe works. 

And if they had been fascinated by her sweet 
voice, they were still more enslaved — those, at 
least, -who were fortunate enough to gain ad- 
mission to the artists’ room — by the artless 
simplicity of her manners, as she stood there 
receiving the congratulations of the amateurs 
and professionals and Festival guests who 
crowded round her. Gretchen was irresistible. 
The most perfect self-possession, acquired by 
long experience in the great world of social 
life, could not have been half so exquisite as 
the wondering grace with which she received 
the homage attendant upon her first great suc- 
cess. She had not expected it ; it puzzled and 
bewildered her. The orchestra was her own 
place. Singing there, she was at home and 


144 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


forgot every thing else ; but all this hum of 
flattery and compliment, this pressing round 
her as if she had done some great thing, when 
she had but told out in her native language the 
thought that was in her — what did it mean? 
Gretchen listened with the prettiest wonder in 
the world. 

“Charming!” said the old Countess of 
Cruxborough aside to her son, after she had 
been chatting for five minutes with the fair lit- 
tle singer. “And her broken English is de- 
licious ! If she keeps those sweet manners she 
will take London by storm. What a thousand 
pities she has not been trained for the stage! 
She would make her fortune in two or three 
seasons.” 

And then, after a word or two of congratu- 
lation to the composer, my lady swept away to 
her carriage, leaving Mr. Grant and Gretchen 
talking over the different parts of the cantata. 
The room was thinning now, for the second 
part of the concert had already begun, but the 
conductor’s work was done for to-night; he 
was not going back to the orchestra again. 

“I see you keep your old fondness for blue,” 
he said, lightly touching the ribbon in Gretchen’s 
hair. “ How well I remember your having it 
just like that three years ago, when Madame 
Fortebracchio sent for you into the canon’s 
vestry, and we all thought you looked so pret- 
ty.” 

“It is the same, then,” said Gretchen, with 
a rosy flush upon her cheeks ; but that might 
only be for the Kapellmeister’s compliment and 
the proud satisfaction which he showed in his 
young pupil. “ I have kept it carefully all the 
time. I do love this ribbon, for it binds me 
to my old life here, when you were all so good 
to me. Ah ! do I not also remember when I 
wore it, so long ago ? Always will I keep it, 
for that it is to me like a story which I love to 
hear.” 

And she took an end of the ribbon and laid 
her cheek upon it, with a tender, caressing 
touch. Roger, chatting not far off with a lit- 
tle knot of gentlemen, heard what she said, 
and his heart beat with fresh hope. Gretchen 
had never forgotten ; Gretchen had never been 
untrue. Jean had told him all about every 
thing — how the Signor Notturino had deceived 
them both, how the poor child had been think- 
ing all these years that they had given over 
caring for her, how she tried to bear it and 
be patient, and how she had toiled on through 
these three years at her music, and won, at 
last, with neither help nor patronage, to her 
own place ; but through all she had been faith- 
ful to the past. Thinking herself unremem- 
bered she had remembered still; and now, 
standing at the threshold of her beautiful art- 
life, she cherished the memory of the old days. 
They were to her even yet “a story which I 
love to hear.” 

Roger stood there after his friends had left 
him, as if in a dream, looking through the gold- 
en gate which those few words of Gretchen’s 


had opened to him, until Jean came up— Jean, 
who had no place in the congratulations, who 
was the centre of no eager knot of admirers, - 
who could only stay in lier quiet little corner 
afar off, and find her brightness in the reflect- j 
ed joy of those she loved. 

“It is time for us to go now, Roger. I 
should think the fly has been waiting ever so 1 
long.” 

He started ; he had been watching Gretchen 
as she chatted so brightly and innocently with 
Mr. Grant. What a pretty picture she made, 
standing there in front of the crimson draper- 
ies, the white muslin dress floating cloud-like 
round her, the blue -hooded cloak gathered 
loosely with one hand, her face lighted up with 
perfect joy and content as the delighted little ; 
Kapellmeister told her how bravely she had j 
done her part! And yet there was all the j 
old simplicity about her. It was the same 
rich, girlish smile which had flashed out upon j 
him three years ago in the corridor of the 1 
Woolsthorpe works — the same free, fearless 
maiden grace which had Avon his heart then, 
only touched now into the rarer beauty of the j 
artist -Avoman. It AA f as so like being in the , 
singing-class again to see her standing there, j 
bright-eyed, eager, happy ; just as she used to 'j 
look as he waited for her at the foot of the \ 
stairs, before they had their walk together to i 
the college yard. Almost he could have gone j 
up to her uoav, and bidden her away, and take<;™| 
her to Mrs. Bratchet’s little kitchen, 'sand then , 
have loitered outside, Avaiting to hear her voice ; 
in the good old woman’s evening hymn. And . 
Jean had given it all to him again — Jean, Avho 
must sit forever lonely by her own fireside, near- j 
est, dearest, and best to none. 

He took her little brotvn hand into liis. Mr. 1 
Grant led Gretchen, and they came away. But i| 
it had been noised about in the tOAvn that the i 
lacquering girl had come back, and the men 
and Avomen from the Woolsthorpe Avorks had • 
congregated round the doors ; and Avhen they I 
caught sight of the golden curls again and the | 
fair young face, which they kneAv so Avell of old, j 
they sent up a shout of Avelcome, louder, heart- j 
ier, and longer even than that which had almost . 
shaken the walls of the assembly-room an hour 
before. And then some of the more enthusi- 1 
astic among them unharnessed the horses, and 
insisted upon drawing the carriage themselves ; ■ 

and some must shake hands with her, and some 
must speak, and some must have if it Avere but 
a smile ; and Patch, keeping away in the back- 
ground, watched it all, and then sat doAvn on 
the Minster steps, in the cold and dark, to see ; 
the carriage dragged up to the door of the lit- 
tle house at the east front, and Gretchen disap- 
pear, amidst cheers and shouts and hurras and 
waving of hats, into the quiet shelter of Roger 
Monkeston’s home. 

“ It looks as if that Avas going to be it,” said 
the dark-faced Avoman to herself, as, when all 
Avas still again, she got up to go away. “So 
there comes the day to one, and the night to 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


145 


another, and at the end of it all we lie down 
and die.” 

And with a sigh she turned from the glow 
she had made for others, to the gloom she had 
made for herself. 


CHAPTER LIX. 

Next day Gretchen sang the soprano solos 
of the “ Messiah ” in the great Domkirche. 

Mrs. Bratchet was there, of course. The 
good woman had only been kept in the dark 
nntil the cantata was safely over, and then 
Gurtha had been sent to tell her the whole 
story, and to take her a new dress and bonnet 
• — Gretchen’s present — in which to appear at 
the Festival. The girl would fain have gone 
first thing in the morning to have seen her old 
friend, but Jean made her sit still, and take 
care of her strength for the oratorio. She 
would not let her go to see Patch either, nor 
were they to come to see her until the after- 
noon performance was done with ; then Gret- 
ehen should sit in state to receive company, 
the company being a washer- woman and a 
lacquering woman, who were to come in for 
an hour after the oratorio. What would Crux- 
borough have said if it had known of the ar- 
rangement? 

What would it have said, too, if it could 
have peeped into the queer old organ-loft of 
the Minster on that second day of the Festi- 
val, and seen the guests Avho, by Mr. Grant’s 
arrangement, had been accommodated with 
places there ? The guinea people in the front 
seats of the nave, who saw heads moving be- 
hind the screen, thought most likely some high- 
ly-favored aristocrats had been taken there to 
listen to the performance in perfect privacy ; 
the Countess of Cruxborough possibly, with 
the young earl, and perhaps the royal duke 
and duchess, who had expressed their inten- 
tion of being present at one of the oratorios. 
A mistake entirely. For that was Mrs. Brat- 
chet’s new black silk bonnet, which kept bob- 
bing restlessly up and down ; now almost out 
of sight as the worthy lady’s feelings quite 
overpowered her, and she was fain to subside 
into a fourpenny pocket-handkerchief; now 
stretched forward as far as possible behind the 
crumbling old pinnacle work, that its owner 
might catch a sight of the waving flowers and 
feathers and ribbons below, and far away, be- 
yond them all, the white robes and glistening 
golden hair of' little Gretchen among the solo 
singers. And the tall thin woman, who never 
stirred once, but sat like a wooden figure far 
back out of sight, was Patch, who had had a 
holiday given her on purpose to come to the 
Festival. And the tiny little person, almost 
hidden behind a huge panel of Gothic work, 
was Jean Monkeston ; and the gentleman whom 
the nave people mistook for a royal duke or the 
Earl of Cruxborough, was none other than a 
10 


certain young mechanic, whose hands had only 
within the last three years been purified from 
touch of engine-grease, and who had not yet 
burned or given away the workman’s blouse in 
which he had stood for many an hour at his 
bench, an alien and an outcast from all privi- 
leges whatsoever of polite society. 

“ But, law, now to think on it all !” said Mrs. 
Bratchet, when, after the performance was over, 
the occupants of the “ royal” pew, with the ex- 
ception of Patch, who preferred strolling about 
a little, had come across, and were comfortably 
settled down again in the old-fashioned house 
at the east end. “How things does turn their- 
selves round, to be sure, in this here world ! 
To think as I should ever live to see her stand- 
ing up there like one of the Almighty’s blessed 
angels, and singing that beautiful while you 
might have almost took your Bible oath she 
belonged to ’em. I wouldn’t say it, Miss Jean, 
if she was here to listen, but being as she’s gone 
into t’other room to rest herself a bit, bless her! 
there’s no harm to tell what you think, and it 
beat me, it did, fairly. I could have cried, 
only for the new bonnet as the sweet creature 
sent me, and it wouldn’t have been luck to ha’ 
spotted the strings first time using of ’em ; but 
them choruses was beautiful. When they all 
started shouting right up, I could ha’ joined in 
too, if it hadn’t been again’ the custom, as I’m 
never a woman that does what isn’t proper. 
Law! Miss Jean, it was almost every bit as 
good as the ‘Glory Hallelujah!’ when we get 
uncommon lively at the prayer-meeting, and it 
isn’t in nature you can say for it more than 
that. 

“And for as lovely as she looked too,” con- 
tinued Mrs. Bratchet, who always found great 
difficulty in coming to a close when she was 
once launched out into conversation. “Just 
like a picter. And that blue ribbon in her 
hair, as she were always such a one for a bit 
of blue when she could get it, bless her! I 
mind as well as can be yon last Festival, just 
afore she went away. I seed her with a bit o’ 
ribbon just like that, and what store she did 
set by it, to be sure, and I couldn’t but think 
as somebody more’n common had gived it her ; 
and I axed her, but she sort o’ fired up same 
as she didn’t often do, and I made sure there 
was more in it nor what I saw, and it were as 
like as two pins to what she had on to-day.” 

Roger, lying back in the easy-chair, smiled 
to hear that, and he would perhaps have made 
willing Mrs. Bratchet say a little more about it, 
only just then Gretchen came in, in her Fes- 
tival dress, bright, smiling, happy, with scarce- 
ly a touch of tiredness on her young face. 

“Ah! Frau Bratchet,” she said, laying her 
two hands on the old Avoman’s shoulder, and 
kissing the Avrinkled yet kindly old cheeks, “ do 
you, then, quite forgive me that I \\;ent away 
from you? It Avas not I indeed Avho made it 
so. And I had much thought of you.” 

“Forgive you, honey?” and Mrs. Bratchet 
Avas obliged to have recourse again to the al- 


146 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


ready tear-soaked handkerchief which had done 
so much duty at the Festival, “ it’s me as should 
ax that, to think as I ever took up a wrong 
thought again’ you, only you see it was with 
never having a message nor nothing, as it stands 
to reason one can’t see through it all at once, 
as you may say. And your box left there un- 
der the bed, honey, as it’s many and many a 
time one and another of ’em has been at me 
for to open it out, and sell it for what it would 
make ; but, says I, no, it’s no business of mine, 
says I, to go meddling with other folk’s things, 
and maybe some day she’ll come back for it 
herself. And here you are, honey, and there’s 
the box, and you shall have it for the fetching, 
whenever you’ve a mind to.” 

“No, Frau Bratchet, it shall be to you now. 
I want nothing of all that I had in those years, 
save only my blue ribbon, which I promised 
myself I would wear, when in your Domkirche 
I was at last permitted to sing. All the rest 
you must have.” 

“Why, honey, and is it the very same? 
Goodness ! now, to think what care you must 
have taken on it. I were telling Miss Jean, a 
bit since, how I minded of a blue ribbin as you 
used to set a deal of store by, and it lay strong 
upon my mind as what it were summut more’n 
common, but I didn’t — ” 

“Ah! Frau Bratchet,” said Gretchen, col- 
oring, “but say did you love to hear me sing 
at the Festival? You have not yet told me 
any thing.” 

And the rosy face flashed quickly aw ay into 
the shadow ; not so quickly, though, that Jean, 
sitting quietly by, failed to see the deepening 
glow upon it. 

“ Why, honey, it seems overnear hand yet 
to say what I think about it, but it isn’t often 
I get more of a start nor what I did last night, 
when Gurtha come to me and told me you w r as 
back again among us, and to sing i’ the Minster 
this afternoon. And you did right, Miss Jean, 
not to tell me afore, for I couldn’t have kept 
it in, no, not if I’d tied my tongue up ever so. 
And says I, Gurtha, I says, I’ll go hear her, 
that will I, if I live on bread -and -cheese a 
whole week for it, and hey a new dress to my 
back and all ; for you see I’d got a bit of mon- 
ey laid by, with the fifteen- and -sixpence as 
Fateh brought me, and it as good as lost this 
nearly three years ; and Gurtha she w'as a bit 
sly, and didn’t tell me the thick end on it at the 
first, only miss had come back, and you was all 
agoing to the music together ; and says I, I’ll 
iron out my Sunday apron, and get a pair o’ 
new strings to my bonnet, so as nobody sha’n’t 
be ashamed of me, and I’ll manage to slip in 
somewhere among the back seats, where it 
don’t cost much. And then Gurtha she up and 
she says, I don’t need to spend my money that 
way, for you was going to treat me ; and she 
kind o’ flung it at me, for you see, Miss Jean, 
she don’t like these here musicking places, no, 
nor ever did, and wouldn’t go to ’em herself, 
not if you was to beg and pray of her to, which 


is the same with me in a general way, and 
looks upon ’em as vanity, only it makes a dif- 
ference when them as you’ve done for like your 
own comes back, and you know it’s all right; 
and so says I, well, that fixes it, and there’s the 
bit of ribbin for strings, and I started reckon- 
ing what they’d come to, when Gurtha she out 
with a big parcel, and says she, the young lady’s 
sent you this; and when I come to open it, 
there was the dress as you see me in it at the 
present, honey, and my very best duty and serv- 
ice to you for it ; and then the bonnet, so as if 
I’d picked and chose it my own self it couldn’t 
have been more suitabler to any body profess- 
ing godliness ; which it isn’t right to set one’s 
self out in gay apparel. But black silk there’s 
no one can go against, and takes to pieces, and 
sponges, and looks as good as new again, so as 
it’ll last me my lifetime, if I’m spared. And 
when they w r as both spread out afore me, I was 
that pleased I could have cried my eyes out ; 
and says I to Gurtha, ‘Fall to, honey, and we’ll 
have a bit of singing ;’ and we both on us sang 
‘Glory Hallelujah!’ right through. Ay, Mr. 
Monkeston, you may laugh and welcome, but 
it lifts you up wonderful, does a hit of praise. 
When I’m happy I sing, and when I’m a bit 
the other way I kneel me down and pray out 
loud, and there’s generally a blessing comes 
with it. That’s my science, Mr. Roger, and I 
can see as far with it as you can, with all your 
fine telescopes and things.” ..>*■ 

“ Very likely, Mrs. Bratchet ; there's a great 
deal I can’t see with them. But it wasn’t the 
singing that amused me just now.” 

“ Then, please, sir, what was it ? for you 
looked uncommon funny. I’ve seed you look 
that way many a time, Mr. Roger, when there^ ! 
been something to come after it.” 

“ Well, I was thinking that there will never 
be silence in heaven for the space of half an 
hour, after you go there.” 

Mrs. Bratchet looked puzzled, as if a new 
theological difficulty had dawned upon her. 

“Well, Mr. Roger, I don’t doubt but what I 
shall keep going pretty well. It’s in me, that’s 
where it is, and folks must live according to 
their lights ; and I’ve oft thought, when I’ve 
been set studying by myself, as that must have 
been an uncommon dull time when the blessed 
angels was all a-waiting and a-wondering, and 
never no telling what was to come next. It’s 
a deal more to my liking where it says they 
don’t rest day nor night. I’m one as wants to 
be always doing, Mr. Roger, same as yon poor 
woman, Patch, as you don’t never catch her 
sitting still a minute, only when she’s that spent 
she can’t stir herself. And, law, Miss Jean, 
what a story that is, to be sure, as I could 
scarce believe my ears when Gurtha told me, 
and such a-carrying on as she must have had, 
poor thing, afore it come to that with her as she 
couldn’t live with him no longer. Eh, Miss 
Jean, but there’s some folks gets one thing and 
some gets another. To think of my old man 
now, as there was never a cross word betwixt 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


147 


us, and burying him at last with a widow’s cap 
and every thing proper, as Mrs. Monkeston 
herself, bless her! give me, for it was when 
she lived at the Willowmarshes ; and a stone 
pit up, as I said he should have it if I starved 
myself for a year, and the sweetest of verses on 
it you ever saw, and goes to it reg’lar, Miss 
Jean, on the day as he was took from me, and 
keeps his few bits of things, ay, and wouldn’t 
part with ’em, no, not if it was for thousands of 
gold and silver !” 

And a tear did drop on the new bonnet- 
strings, after all, but Mrs. Bratchet wiped it off 
carefully, and then, turning to Gretchen, set off* 
upon another track. 

“ They say you’re going to London, honey, 
among all the grand folk, but I lay you won’t 
forget us ; and maybe you’ll be coming back 
afore Chresamus-time, for it stands to reason 
you’ll hfl^to hear the anthems and all that, as 
I’ve he^p tell there isn’t a place anywhere 
where 1*y do ’em better nor what they do 
here, thcnigh, to my thinking, it’s more to profit 
when the congregation joins in, same as they 
do at our chapel ; but that’s as folks likes it, 
and there may come a blessing both ways, 
when there’s a willing spirit and a waiting 
frame ; not but what I’d a deal rather join in 
myself, though, for that matter, and couldn’t 
Scarce hold still a bit since i’ the Minster when 
the Hallelujah Chorus got agate. Law, Miss 
'-J^an, it stirred me up, it did, while I scarce 
knew where I was, nor what I were doing ; 
and if it hadn’t been as the reg’lations went 
again’ it, I could ha’ given tongue as loud as 
any of ’em — ay, and with as good a reason, too, 
for if there’s any body needs to shout ‘ Glory 
Hallelujah!’ it’s Deborah Bratchet, a sinner 
saved by grace, and a blessed hope laid up for 
me, as I’m only waiting and trusting while it 
all comes true ; and my old man yonder, bless 
him ! ready for me, as I seemed to see him as 
fair as could be up among the angels, when 
they was a-singing ‘Worthy is the Lamb,’ and 
him with his crown and his palm-branch, and 
his white robes, as it isn’t a deal longer I’ll be 
kep’ away from him now, please the Lord to 
let me hear the bridegroom's voice, and go in 
to the marriage-supper, which’ll be a deal bet- 
ter nor even what the Festival is, and all on us 
joining in too, same as it can’t be i’ the Min- 
ster. And now, Miss Gretchen, honey — ” 

And Mrs. Bratchet rose from her seat, and 
shook out her dress, and stroked down her 
muslin apron, and pulled her bonnet a little 
more forward, and, taking a glass of wine which 
Jean had just poured out for her, looked round 
about upon the little company, and prepared to 
enter into the solemnities of a set speech. 

“Miss Gretchen, honey — ” 

“ No, no, good Frau Bratchet, I will not have 
it so. I like not your ‘Miss’ — there is to me 
no sound of home in it — let it still be as in the 
old time.” 

“Bless you, honey! I thought that was 
what you would say, for I knowed you hadn’t 


forgot the old times ; but when I see you set 
there, just for all the world like a real picter, 
wi’ that beautiful white muslin, like the wise 
virgins in the Minster windows, as I’ve looked 
at ’em many and many a time, it didn’t seem 
paying proper respect not to make a difference. 
But as you’ve give me leave, it shall be just 
the old way, while I get the right to call yon 
missis, which, if every body thought as I do, it 
wouldn’t be a long while first. And so, honey, 
here’s my grateful thanks to you for the gownd 
and the bonnet” — and Mrs. Bratchet courtesied 
— “ which I’ll keep ’em with the greatest of care 
while my dying day, if I’m spared, and couldn’t 
have been more suitable, not if I’d picked and 
chose ’em my own self out of all Cruxborough ; 
and health and happiness, and every thing else, 
as the best of well-wishers could ask it for you ; 
and my humble obedience to you, Miss Jean ” 
— and Mrs. Bratchet made a second courtesy 
— “and a many thanks for all you’ve done for 
me, as it’s a good friend you’ve been, and no 
mistake ; and your dear mother, bless her ! 
afore you, as never let me want when she had 
it to give; and Mr. Monkeston, sir” — Mrs. 
Bratchet courtesied a third time — “my respect 
and duty, and a bonnie wife when the time 
comes, and not far to seek her neither, as I al- 
ways says don’t look into the middle of next 
week for your mercies, for you’ll find ’em 
nigher hand nor that ; and a blessing on your 
basket and your store, same as you couldn’t 
have it if you was like a many, Mr. Roger, as 
don’t know the difference betwixt their own 
and other people’s — a-scrapin’ and a- gather- 
in’ — ” 

Mrs. Bratchet paused, for just then the door 
was opened quietly, and Fateh looked in. 

“Come along, Fateh,” said Roger, cheerily. 
“Mrs. Bratchet is drinking* our healths, and 
you are just in time to join her.” 

“No, thank you, sir, not just now; but I 
wish you good health all the same, and never 
to want a friend so long as one can do you 
good. I only thought I would come in and 
tell you something I’ve just heard, as I was 
talking to the waiter at the ‘Cruxborough 
Arms ’ — Mr. Ballinger has got his own at last, 
Martinet’s bank has failed, and he is a ruined 
man.” 

And, quietly as she had opened it, Fateh 
shut the door, and went away. 

There was dead silence for a moment or 
two. Mrs. Bratchet, as usual, was the first to 
break it. Taking up her glass, she proceeded 
with her speech : 

“Serve him right ; and if it all come upon 
hisself, and nobody else hurt, I’d call it a good 
ending to a bad business. I’ve lived eight- 
and-sixty year come next Candlemas-day, if 
I’m spared, and I never knew yet but what a 
man had his vittles brought to him same as he’d 
cooked ’em ; and I lay now he’ll wish he’d 
stuck to his own kettle. They say stolen broth 
takes a deal o’ minding, fear it boils over when 
your back’s turned, and that’s way with hisn. 


148 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


And now, here’s my love and duty again, and 
the best of blessings to you, every one, and 
may you live contented, and die respected ; 
and a happy meeting for us all up yonder 
with them as is gone before. I can’t add no 
more to that.” 

And Mrs. Bratchet drank her wine, and 
then, with a succession of backward ’courtesies, 
and many a smile and many a tear chasing 
each other over her honest old face, she made 
her way to the door and disappeared, to talk it 
. all over again with Gurtha in the kitchen. 

Half an hour later Roger and Grctclien, only 
those two, stood alone together in the little par- 
lor. Her hands were loosely clasped, the flick- 
ering fire-light played upon her face, coming 
and going with the smile which came and went 
there. But the deepening glow beneath her 
down-fallen eyelids had kindled itself from the 
light which never was on land or sea, even the 
rosy day-dawn of hope fulfilled. One thought, 
one memory was in both their hearts. Three 
years ago to-night. Only, then, they stood out 
in the cold, and in the dark ; and now the 
warm, sweet shelter of home was around them. 
And then Roger whispered, in the loneliness 
of his life, “Stay, Gretchen — stay!” and she 
had wandered, phantom -like, away from him 
into the gloom of that long, dreary silence. 
But now T he called her to him, and she came, 
in all the white sweetness of her womanhood, 
a phantom no longer, but the living, breathing 
companion of his life. And then the bells 
rang merrily, merrily out, while Cruxborough 
kept holiday under the shadow of its old ca- 
thedral towers ; but now hope’s gladder peal 
kept rhyming, chiming, and changing, rhyming, 
chiming, and changing ; for a new day had 
dawned, after the long twilight of patience, and 
in these two hearts a new Festival- tide had 
arisen, whose music was love’s everlasting song. 


CHAPTER LX. 

All these things w r ere over and done with 
twenty years ago. There is no Festival now- 
in the old city of Cruxborough ; it is dead ; so 
is Mr. Grant’s choir; so is Mr. Grant; so is 
good Dr. Boniface ; so almost is Cruxborough 
itself, or, at least, it sleeps a sleep which is like 
to the calm of death. 

Patch, too, is gone. The end of her life was, 
like its course, full of bitterness and pain. She 
was going too near some of the machinery in 
the engine-house, and her foot slipped, and she 
was drawn in among the cruel wheels, and there 
remained no hope of health or healing for her. 
Roger Monkeston drew her away, crushed, 
maimed, bleeding, and she breathed out her 
life in his arms. She had done much for him ; 
it was fitting he should do a little for her. 
People said it was a terrible thing, almost too 
shocking to think about ; and for a long time 


I afterward the rough -handed, tender-hearted 
workmen passed that spot with bated breath. 
Yet that strong, relentless piece of mechanism, 
moving from the pulse of life which only men 
gave it, doing its work, wielding its mighty 
power alike upon bending steel or quivering 
human flesh, was scarce crueller than that other 
mechanism of a thinking man’s selfishness and 
greed, which had caught the poor creature’s 
soul years and years before, and sucked it slow- 
ly, strongly up, and crushed the life out of it, 
and then cast it forth to crawl away in its mis- 
ery whither it would. But if society pitied 
maimed souls as much as it pities maimed bod- 
ies, there would be too many hospitals. 

Cruxborough, which, when he w-as living, 
extended to Matthew Arncliffe the extremest 
finger-tip of recognition, has given him, now 
that he is dead, a statue all of marble. It 
stands at the entering of the High Street, upon 
a granite base, whereon are inscribed the great 
deeds which he had done, the victories which 
he had achieved over the forces of Nature, the 
wondrous insight with which he wrung from 
her her mighty secrets, and gave them to the 
keeping of science. But while the Woolsthorpe 
works remain where he built them, and while 
those great telescopes of his pierce the mys- 
teries of space, the noble old astronomer needs 
no monument that skill of man can raise to 
him. 

Jean Monkeston, whom he loved so tender- 
ly, lives on still in the little house by the east 
front of the Minster, a quiet, peaceful old maid. 
She has solved her life problem — a problem 
difficult, perhaps, as any of those over which 
Roger knitted his brows and puzzled his brains 
in the young years of his manhood. But no 
Royal Institute has awarded her a medal for 
the successful working of it, nor have the mem- 
bers of any Imperial Academy asked her to 
read a paper on the result of her researches. 
Jean’s order of merit, her jeweled star of hon- 
or, is the calm, unwrinkled brow which she 
wears through this, her peaceful afternoon of 
life. Her style and title, which no herald will 
ever proclaim, nor any graven marble tell, are 
only known to the thorn-crowned King, who, 
perhaps, one day, in other than an earthly 
court, will read them forth ; and the brave, 
true-hearted, much-enduring little woman will 
at last find her own place. 

Roger lives chiefly in London, where he has 
made for himself a good name, treading wor- 
thily in the footsteps of the grand old man who 
first opened to him the gate of success. Sweet 
Gretchen, happy wife and mother now, is a 
great favorite with her husband’s friends. 
They chide him sometimes for having pluck- 
ed so fair a gem from the diadem of art, and 
placed it where the sunshine of public life can 
no longer bring out its flashing colors. Gret- 
chen thinks differently. Home light is all she 
'needs -to sparkle in. The jewel of her love 
gleams most brightly at its own fireside. She 
and Roger were married just a year after her 


THE BLUE RIBBON. 


140 


return to England ; the wedding was from the 
little house in Bishop’s Lane. The Minster bells 
rang Roger’s festival in and Cruxborough’s 
Eestival out, in the same peal ; and Gretchen 
wore, instead of myrtle wreath or orange blos- 
som, the Himmelblciu ribbon which had been her 
first love-gift, four years before. * 

They often come back to the old city now, 
for those great Woolsthorpe works are going 
on still, and Roger’s superintendence is needed 
for the instruments which are sent out from 
them all over the world. Mrs. Balmain never 
sees any engine - grease on Mr. Monkeston’s 
hands, but perhaps that is because, unfortu- 
nately for herself, she never comes near enough 
to have a proper view of them ; for Roger is 
very proud, bows distantly to her in the street, 
and that is all. Because he goes about among 


such grand people, Mrs. Balmain thinks, dines 
with dukes and carls at their great London 
gatherings, and has his name written in the 
foremost ranks of science. We, who know 
better, may be allowed to think differently. 
In the little private office of the Woolsthorpe 
works, behind a lot of telescope tubes, orrery 
frames, chronometer cases, and mathematical 
instruments, hangs a worn - out blouse, which 
Roger used to wear when he worked at the 
steam-lathe, close to that wooden partition, and 
which was once quite too discreditable to come 
between the wind and Mrs. Balmain’s nobility. 
That blouse keeps him out of society still ; he 
will cross no threshold which once scorned both 
it and him. And so now Cruxborough bites 
its lips for vexation because those Monkestons 
never ask it to dine with them. 


THE END. 









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